Not Afraid of You Anymore

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
The pain is gone, I've succeeded. I feel strong too. I'm not afraid of you anymore! You won't kill me, I'll make you pay for everything you did to me!!!
—Ariel, Drowtales chapter 8

In fiction it's common for a character who has been abused or mistreated by another to eventually confront that person in order to move on with their life, and they discover that the person really was never as powerful as they thought, and that the abuse they suffered was the result of that person's own issues and insecurities. The abused may even take pity on the person who hurt them and decide that they're Not Worth Killing, and this is often the first step in a Humiliation Conga.

An unpleasant subversion of this takes place when, after being confronted, the abuser turns out to be even more dangerous than the abused realized.

Unfortunately, the above can and does happen in real life. Not all bullies back down when challenged, some are neither cowardly nor insecure, just vicious.

Compare Face Your Fears. See also Calling the Old Man Out for a specific variant of this. Not to be confused with I'm Not Afraid of You, when a threat loses its power (or disappears entirely) once a character is no longer afraid of it.

Examples of Not Afraid of You Anymore include:

Anime and Manga

  • Brutally done by Lucy in Elfen Lied to the cruel kids who tormented her for so long after they push her too far by killing her dog in front of her. She snaps and kills them.
  • In the Revolutionary Girl Utena series, Anthy's walking out on her brother Akio is one of these.
  • There is a supernatural variety of this in Mnemosyne: the protagonist Rin is an immortal, and immortals fall into uncontrollable sexual drive when a creature called "angel" is nearby. The villain, who is an angel himself, uses this many times throughout the series to humiliate Rin but in the very end, Rin evolves into an immortal angelic being herself and sends the villain himself into uncontrollable sexual lust for her in their final confrontation.
  • In Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kai, Satoko, with support from Keiichi, Rika, and oh yeah the entire village, confronting her abusive uncle Teppei, screaming that she hates him and for him to "GET OUT!!", despite being beaten while doing so. Just when he goes to attack again, the police bust in and capture him.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist: When Dr. Marcoh finally decides to go face to face with his tormentor Envy, a Homunculus full of Philosopher's Stones, and shows why it's a bad idea to screw with a guy who made those stones for a living.
  • Sora of Sukisho does this to Aizawa in the last episode, the guy who was responsible for torturing him and Sunao throughout their childhood, after being terrified of him for so long.

Comic Books

  • In the comic book Excalibur, Wolfsbane verbally confronts Reverend Craig, the abusive pastor who raised her and later tried to kill her when she was revealed as a mutant. She reduces him to tears by revealing that she knows he was her biological father and that her mother was a prostitute (with the implication that she could ruin him by making that information public).
    • Later, in more recent comic books, Craig does turn out to be more dangerous. Then, so does Wolfsbane. She while utterly brainwashed, mind you, kills and EATS HIM.
  • In Fray (a spinoff of Buffy the Vampire Slayer), our eponymous heroine breaks down and is unable to fight the first time she is confronted by the vampire that killed her brother. The second time, she just tosses aside her weapon and gets ready. Subverted when her sister crushes him with a car. And Fray comments she was about to get her ass kicked.

Fan Works

  • In the Revolutionary Girl Utena fanfic Jaquemart Anthy slaps her former abusive fiancée Saionji, a reversal of what he did to her at the beginning of the series.
    • Of course she had never been afraid of him as such, and was just venting some steam. And quickly realized that she was indeed getting in exactly the same state of mind as Saionji used to be, which she wasn't at all pleased about.

Film

  • The 1980s all-star version of Alice in Wonderland has Alice shouting this at the Jabberwocky.
  • In the backstory of the teacher in Pay It Forward. However, it ends badly for him as his own (abusive) father decides to hit him with a 4x4 when his back is turned and then set him on fire.
  • At the end of the horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street, Nancy defeats Freddy for good when she turns her back on him, saying "You're nothing. You're shit." When Freddy tries to hurt her, he instead melts away into nothing, and the people he killed come back to life, implying that his power was dependent on his victims' fear of him. Then it turns out that Freddy's Not Quite Dead in a Diabolus Ex Machina ending.
  • Parodied in the comedy-horror film House (the one from The Eighties, not the new film of the same name) when William Katt suddenly realizes that not being afraid of the villain will dispell all his power. Of course, when you're William Katt, nothing can scare you.
  • At the end of Space Jam, the Monstars are being thoroughly berated by their boss, Mr. Swackhammer, for having lost the big basketball game that would've given him permanent control over the Looney Toons. When Michael asks the Monstars why they put up with this kind of abuse, the Monstars reply: "He's bigger..." * there is a pregnant pause, then the Monstars grin wickedly as they realize the truth of their situation* "...bigger than we used to be." They then stuff Mr. Swackhammer into a rocket and launch it, sending him back to Moron Mountain alone.
  • Labyrinth

Sarah: Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City. For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great... You have no power over me.

Abby: I'm not afraid of you, Marty.
Visser; (laughing) Well ma'am, if I see him, I'll be sure to give him the message.

  • Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer has a variation of this. The Surfer turns against his master, Galactus, and says "I no longer wish to serve you".
  • Pulled by Josh in Insidious against the demonic old lady who had been stalking him and trying to take over his body since childhood. It doesn't work.
  • The end of A Bugs Life has the ants realizing they kind of outnumber the grasshoppers a million to one, and suddenly they're not so afraid anymore and Zerg Rush the grasshoppers.
  • At the end of The Ant Bully Lucas is not afraid of the bully anymore after his experiences with the ants.
  • In Monsters, Inc., Boo confronts Randall, the monster in charge of scaring her, when he tries to push Sulley off a door suspended hundreds of feet in the air.

"She's not afraid of you anymore. Looks like you're out of a job."

Literature

  • Kethry in Mercedes Lackey's Vows and Honor series was forced into marriage as a child and raped by a rather unpleasant guy, who left her emotionally scarred, but years later winds up being captured again by him once she's gone and become an extremely powerful sorceress. When he comes to see her and torment her again she realizes just how pathetic he is and ends up scaring the bejeezus out of him so that he runs away from her.
  • Lale goes through this in her Final Battle in The Assassins of Tamurin
  • Wicked

Glinda: Don't be afraid, Elphie.
Elphaba: I'm not afraid... It's the Wizard who should be afraid of me.

  • Discworld:
    • At the end of Hogfather, Susan Sto Helit unleashes a Not Afraid of You Anymore speech on Jonathan Teatime as only a badass governess can.
      • Subverted in the same book for Teatime's wizard associate, who gets all fired up to invoke this trope on the vision of his childhood bully: after all, he's a grown man now, so can surely scare off some pesky kid. Too late, he realizes that he himself has become a little boy again...
    • From Sourcery: "I did not throw you far enough!"
    • Rincewind has a similar mental confrontation with the Great Spell inside his head in The Light Fantastic, lambasting it for ruining his life and then being too scared to help him against Trymon in the end.
    • Also in The Truth, William De Worde has a brilliant moment of this with his father, after saying "Men like my father are bullies and they're the worst kind because they aren't cowards and if you stand up to them they only hit you harder." Granted William had a vampire for backup, but he didn't know that.
  • In Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novel Only In Death, Larkin is haunted by apparitions of the (dead) psychopathic killer Cuu. At the end, he defies him and declares he is joining the real Ghosts to die with them. The apparition vanishes.
  • Invoked Trope and then Subverted Trope in the Everworld series. The witch Senna asks her half-sister if she's afraid of her. April, who the narrative makes clear is very much afraid, attempts to tell her the words of this trope. Senna's response is to use her powers to open the gateway between Everworld and the Old World, and then shove her sister's head through it.

Senna: "So much for 'maybe.' "

  • In A Game of Thrones, Daenerys comes to realize that her unstable, abusive older brother Viserys is truly a weak coward who no longer has the power to hurt her.

He was a pitiful thing. He had always been a pitiful thing. Why had she never seen that before? There was a hollow place inside her where her fear had been.

  • In Warcraft: Warcraft: Lord of the Clans, Thrall experiences this when he confronts Blackmore, his abusive foster father. He reflects on how he had been afraid of him and worshiped him, when in the end he was only a miserable wreck.
  • In Uprising Kerrigan confronts Rumm, the officer who had abused her for a decade. She escapes captivity and deep fries his brain with her powers giving him a long overdue Karmic Death

Live-Action TV

  • In The Twilight Zone episode "A Piano in the House", a man buys a player piano with an unusual quality: when loaded with the correct music, it causes a person listening to it to express their true emotions and personality. He uses it to expose the personality flaws of his dinner guests so he can cruelly mock them. However, the piano eventually reveals his inner nature to be immature and frightened of other people, which causes him to be malicious and hateful. When the others learn this, they feel pity for him.
  • Shortly after the 2008 election, Chris Wallace was interviewed on The Daily Show and gave Jon Stewart a cookie as a gift from Karl Rove, with a strong implication that it was poisoned (Rove had told Wallace specifically which cookie out of the batch to pass on to him). The Studio Audience, smelling a rat, began yelling for Jon not to eat it.

Jon Stewart: Let me tell you why I'll eat it: Karl Rove can't hurt me anymore. [eats cookie]

  • The powerfully telekinetic girl in Angel broke down when confronted with her abusive father, but she then managed to overcome her fear and throw him out a window and catch him a few feet from the pavement.
    • In an early season one episode, Angel is sent to help a woman who has been stalked, for months, by an obsessive doctor who has found a metaphysical way of pulling his body parts so they can move around, under his control, even when they aren't attached to his body. In the climax this woman, previously nervous and fearful as a result of paranoia, finally stands up to the man, realising that his stalking makes him feel better about himself and helps him gratify his own lack of self-worth. He loses his edge as a result and is defeated by a newly arrived Angel.
  • In season five of Lost, Locke ominously tells Ben that he's not afraid of anything Ben can do anymore. This is a clue that it's not really Locke.
  • In the old Buck Rogers TV series, there was a sorcerer/rabble rouser, played by Jack Palance(!), who could strike anyone dead with a magical touch...but only if that person believed in and feared his power. Buck Rogers figures this out and destroys his power by publically demonstrating that it is hollow.
  • In the fifth episode of the first series of Being Human (UK), Annie gives an incredible Not Afraid of You Anymore speech to her fiancee/murderer Owen, in which she confronts him over her murder, then tells him the Secret Only The Dead Know, causing him to Go Mad from the Revelation.
  • In the episode "Profiler, Profiled" on Criminal Minds, Derek Morgan has a scene at the end where he tells off the unsub Carl Buford, the man who raped him repeatedly when he was young in what is essentially just one big moment of this. Eventually, the unsub gets so desperate that he unintentionally reveals his crimes to the police, exposing himself as the monster he truly is. As he gets taken away, Derek tells him to go to hell while the unsub can only beg desperately.
  • Done a few times in Eastenders with Domestic Abuser storylines:
    • Little Mo against Trevor. After a prolonged abusive relationship, Little Mo finally snaps and attacks him with an iron. When he later attempts to kill them both in fire, she stands up against him and manages to escape while he burns.

Little Mo: What's wrong, Trevor? Cat got your tongue?

Video Games

  • Said not to the villain, but by the villain in World of Warcraft at the climax of the battle with the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel. Arthas, who is indeed a terrifying threat to all of Azeroth, has just had the cursed sword Frostmourne shattered by Tirion Fordring, releasing the souls it has stolen and breaking his power. As he floats, helpless against the finishing blow, he utters these immortal words.

Arthas: "Now I stand, the lion before the lambs, and they do not fear. They cannot fear."

Web Comics

  • Ariel in Drowtales winds up confronting Syphile, the woman who (badly) raised her, and after Syphile tries to kill her Ariel turns on her, shouts the trope name, and uses Syphile's own weapon against her. But she still needs her butt saved in the end as Syphile decides to taint her.
  • A silent variation occurs in El Goonish Shive during a dream sequence, when Grace sees her second alien side, which initially snarls at her, and Grace simply reaches out and hugs it, representing her acceptance of that part of herself.
  • Attempted in Venus Envy by Zoe against the personification of her fears, but since she hasn't completely gotten over them yet it doesn't work.
  • In a recent arc in T. Campbell's Fans, Ally demonstrated that she no longer feared Keith Feddyg by saying the last three words that he wanted to hear from her; "I forgive you."

Western Animation

  • Subverted in Recess. Gus, the awkward new kid, after asking his Army veteran father for advice, attempts to invoke this trope by challenging the bully that has continually hounded him... only to be shocked when the bully nonchalantly accepts the challenge, and then gives him a severe beating off-screen.
    • On the other hand Gus actually accepts the beating willingly, convinced there's nothing he can do after that. Touched by this, the rest of the playground stand up against the bully, upon which he slinks off in a huff.
  • Ron Stoppable from the series Kim Possible really fits this trope. Being that he was afraid of things that were ridiculous things (or perhaps, not so ridiculous), throughout the series, he overcome many of them, such as when he decided to stop running from his mutant enemy Gill and fight back, and more notably he conquered his childhood fear of monkeys, even accepting their nature as the source of his mystical martial arts powers. Even before that, he no longer felt intimidated to face his personal Arch Enemy Monkey Fist, just annoyed.
  • Invoked by Kevin's stepfather in Ben 10: Ultimate Alien: He stands up to the mutated, out of his mind Kevin, declaring "I'm not afraid of you anymore, Kevin."


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