Lowered Monster Difficulty: Difference between revisions
m
clean up
m (update links) |
m (clean up) |
||
Line 4:
This is especially obvious when the heroes don't have any powers or anything technically to distinguish them from any of the other humans that were easily killed.
'''Aspects of
* '''You can see it coming.''' Early in the movie or show, [[Monster Delay|the monster hides in the shadows, and kills its prey without even being seen.]] It can also [[Offscreen Teleportation|be anywhere it wants to be as long as nobody was looking at it.]] Now it can be detected from a distance, and moves a lot slower. The heroine can outrun it long enough for an escape plan.
* '''It takes its time to kill the main characters.''' Non-important characters like police officers are killed in seconds. For the main characters, it just ''stands'' there and roars, or makes threats or evil jokes, and even when it attacks, it tends to miss a lot. The villainous equivalent to [[Kill Him Already]].
Line 21:
== Anime and Manga ==
* In ''[[Black Lagoon]]'',
** Considering that after the fight was over Roberta just needed a little help up and Revy was out cold for hours, it wasn't really that impressive of a "hold her own".
** Hansel and Gretel are a better example: after showing both skill and deviousness when fighting a bunch of [[Mooks]] one of them {{spoiler|tries to take on the leader of a fierce attack squad by ''stepping out into the open to kill her with an ax''}} and the other {{spoiler|just stops paying attention and gets shot in the back}}.
Line 30:
* Major 'boss' fights in the ''[[Claymore]]'' anime take several episodes to defeat, and as a result the weakening of each boss fits every bullet point of this trope to a tee. Even the obligatory constant taunting.
** Perhaps justified, in that they usually use superior numbers and delaying tactics to prolong the battles and wear the opponent out. In effect, they're invoking this trope.
* In ''[[Fate/stay night]]'' the anime, Saber and Shirou's battles against Gilgamesh and
** Especially odd in Gilgamesh's case. Canonically, he is the single most powerful Servant, PERIOD. It's generally agreed that, while not the most powerful character in the [[Nasuverse]] (Zelretch and Archetype Earth can probably beat him), against any other Servant there is no reason he should ever lose. The only reason Enuma Elish is survivable at all is because he's deliberately holding back its full strength. The guy is deliberately lowering his own difficulty, mainly due to his ''galactic''-sized ego. If he was a bit less arrogant and a bit more of a [[Combat Pragmatist]], he'd wipe the floor with everyone.
*** However, he could potentially destroy himself if he used more power, Ea being an Anti-World Noble Phantasm and all.
Line 59:
* The critters in ''[[Pitch Black]]'' are a prime example of this trope. At the beginning of the film, they are clearly crawling around while there's still sunlight visible. Later on, a dimly luminescent glass jar can send them screaming away.
* Roger Ebert called this the "Hero's Death Battle Exemption" and cited the movie ''[[Prophecy (film)|Prophecy]]'' as an example. In this movie, a killer bear shredded normal humans in seconds, but was considerate enough to let the hero stab it in the head multiple times with an arrow, which took ten times longer than it had killed anyone previously.
* The Arachnids in the film ''[[Starship Troopers (film)|Starship Troopers]]'' are classic examples of the trope: in the first major battle scene it takes a fire team of soldiers blasting away on full auto to put down one. In the final battle scene, a trio of heroes with the exact same weapons mow them down by the dozens, and other soldier do so as well. Arguably
* Averted in ''[[Tremors]]''. The first few victims were killed and sucked through the ground without giving them a chance to escape. By the middle of the film, we had two of of them going after a single person, and even one coming up directly under her and she still managed to escape. By contrast, a few Graboids learn and plan, and all refuges become either temporary or a second form of slow death as they work out how to get their prey.
Line 83:
** Not only Slayers, but normal humans Giles and Wood ([[Badass Normal|badass normals]]), Dawn (sort of a [[Badass Normal]]), Xander (sort of a [[Badass Normal]] just due to years of experience), and Andrew and Anya (just normals, not badass at all) are able to dispatch some of them, sometimes without even hitting anywhere near the heart.
** Writer/creator [[Joss Whedon]] even [[Lampshade Hanging|mentioned]] this in the episode's commentary, [[Hand Wave|handwaving]] the problem by saying that that "isn't what it's about."
** Normal vampires had similarly varying levels of capability. It would seem more likely the "ubervamps" weren't really any better than the earthly variety, just uglier. The first one was probably handpicked by the first so it was very
* Daleks, from ''[[Doctor Who]]'', tend to suffer from a strange form of this. Depending on the writer, episode and situation, the Dalek can be a godlike mass-murdering killmachine immune to bullets, missiles and everything else - or capable of being defeated by having their eyestalk covered with a hat.
** The new series tries to have it both ways. In keeping with its new action-dramedy look, it goes the godlike, mass-murdering killmachine route with the Daleks, even trying to make their [[Your Mileage May Vary|truly ridiculous design]] look threatening. And of course, the thing about the Daleks is that there is only one thing they ever do with other species: "Exterminate!" Despite this, ''every'' Dalek two-parter in the new series has relied on the Daleks having the Doctor, his companions, and other important characters at their mercy halfway through the story, gearing up to "Exterminate!" the hell out of them, and then deciding "Maybe later." At one point, they put it off for ''no'' apparent reason other than plot necessity.
** In the Doctor Who episode ''Blink'', the enemies can move so quickly that if you so much as blink, they'll rush forward and drag you decades into the past, but they will turn to stone as long as you're looking at them. Apparently, they lost their exceptional speed halfway through the episode, conveniently before the central characters arrive for the final scene.
*** In what is a rather ''brilliant'' way to mess with the fourth wall, the audience is what saves their lives. Whenever the characters turn around, the angels only ever move just close enough to not get into the cameras field of view. It's also more apparent when the characters are inside the Tardis and the camera is outside of it, the angels can still only move when the lights go out because they revert to statues when the camera sees them. This is also the way the angels could have beaten the Doctor, because it all happened before the cameramen got there.
** The Cybermen acquired a large collection of weaknesses during the run of the original series, but the treatment of their aversion to gold amounts to Serial Lowered Monster Difficulty. In the Tom Baker story "Revenge of the Cybermen," gold was described as the perfect non-corrosive metal that killed by plating the Cyber breathing apparatus. Gold dust was the key, and man had invented he glitter gun. By "Earthshock," the Davison Doctor was able to scratch open a Cyberman's chest plate using the point of Adric's gold star. Then in "Silver Nemesis," even round gold coins were enough to do the trick when used as arrowheads.
| |||