Once Is Not Enough: Difference between revisions

 

It's only a [[Justified Trope]] when it's clear that the villain is of [[The Undead]] or [[Good Thing You Can Heal|they can recover even from continual abuse.]] Beware being [[Wrong Genre Savvy]]; whaling on a downed villain may seem to work, but he may get a sudden surge of energy or overcome his shock at being hit and [[Barehanded Blade Block|catch whatever weapon is being used.]]

 

 

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

 

== [[Film]] ==

** ''Part VI'' featured the town sheriff trying to avert this; repeatedly hitting a downed Jason, who just shrugs it off. Why nobody except Jarvis did this in the first film, nobody knows.

** ''Part VII: The New Blood'' went to ridiculous extents with this. Psychic girl shocks Jason with power line, he walks it off. Girl drops porch on Jason, Jason's back in the 40 seconds she took to lower her guard. Girl hangs Jason with power cord and throws him through floor, he grabs her when she looks down. Girl sets Jason/house on fire, house explodes, [[Overly Long Gag|Jason comes out on fire, but still fine.]] It takes ''resurrecting her dead father to fight Jason'' to finally put down the masked bastard. Every single time, she acts like, "Oh, the guy that just walked off getting a building dropped on him is definitely dead this time."

** Averted in the movie ''[[Death Proof]]'' where they shoot the antagonist and then after he attempts to get away they actively hunt him down.

** Averted many times in ''[[Evil Dead]] 2''. Ash swings off the head of his girlfriend with a spade and then buries her. When she comes back he retaliates, with a chainsaw. Ash made a point of teaching everyone the lesson in time for ''[[Army of Darkness]]'':

** The reverse also happens in just about every movie in the series; they kill off Michael in some [[Made of Iron|increasingly ridiculous]] and stunningly final way, only to have him survive. At the end of the second one, he ''was actually intended to have died,'' but when the Michael-less third movie flopped (it's actually good, watch it), they had him come back in number four. And five. And six. For the record:

** [[Word of God]] [[Retcon|eventually]] [[Ass Pull|declared]] that the villain isn't really Michael Meyers - it's pure evil in his form. Kill it all you like, it'll wake up eventually. There's a reason Michael's actor is always credited as playing "The Shape".

* Avoided in ''[[Sin City]]'', with the gruesome fate of that Yellow Bastard. Kevin gets a similar treatment, having {{spoiler|his limbs and head sawed off and his guts fed to a wolf.}}

** And in the remake of the first one. The protagonist has just smashed the last mutant's head in, and blasted him repeatedly with a shotgun...and he still gets back up.

* The {{spoiler|last two deaths}} in ''[[Diary of the Dead]]'' are a direct result of this trope. Both the camera man and one of the woman knock down {{spoiler|their friend-turned-zombie}} when he's chasing the latter, hit him once on the head, and leave him there, despite the woman in particular {{spoiler|having been shown as perfectly able to finish off a friend-turned-zombie, her ''boyfriend'' no less}}. Naturally, the zombie gets back up, and eventually {{spoiler|knocks one of the characters into the bathtub with a hair-dryer, and takes a bite out of the camera man.}}

* ''[[Slumber Party Massacre III]]'' runs on this, as one by one the victims hit the killer once and try to run away. Fail, rinse, repeat. This continues even after they manage to ''blind him''.

* In ''[[Live Free or Die Hard]]'', McClane's problem with [[Dark Action Girl|Mai]] could have been solved much more quickly had he bothered to confirm she was at least out of it for good.

* ''Shooter''. Subverted in the love interest pumping a few more bullets into the downed mook who had threatened to cut her throat.

== [[Literature]] ==

* In the first Star Wars EU Boba Fett novel, both Boba and Jango pull a [[Aerial Canyon Chase]] (involving missiles) on pursuing starfighters in canyons, and the narrator makes sure to point out that someone tried the same trick on Jango once but it only worked the first time.

 

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

* Averted and inverted in the pilot for ''Firefly'', where {{spoiler|Dawson, the Fed, takes out Book}} with a single blow, then hits him a few more times, <s>just to be sure</s> [[Kick the Dog|out of vindictiveness]] at the Shepherd's earlier assault on him (just look at his expression).

** Subverted at the end of "Shindig."

** Also, Mohinder in season 1, who knocks him out by slamming a giant map into him. ''Awesome''. But then he just leaves him there, despite having shot him, point-blank, while he was helpless last time he had the chance. The fact that this didn't work really should have reinforced the necessity of doing it ''right'' this time.

* Subverted in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|Buffy vs. Dracula]]''. After Buffy stakes Dracula and everyone appears to leave the castle, Dracula regenerates from a mist - only to have Buffy immediately stake him again, saying, "[[Genre Savvy|You think I don't watch your movies?]] You ''always come back''." He tries to regenerate again, but disappears after she says, "I'm standing right here."

** Although according to the continuation comics he's still around, so presumably he just waited until she left and got up again. Of course, he's also an occasional ally now, so twice was apparently enough to make him think better attacking her.

* ''Lost'', multiple incidents. The characters know that humans are much more durable on the island. As such, they fail to make sure their enemies aren't going to come back.

 

== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

** Shepard does the exact same thing in the final battle - but then, s/he's one of the most highly trained humans there is.

** After Saren dies, Shepard's first instinct (after taking control of the Citadel so that the fleet can destroy Sovereign) is to tell his/her companions to "make sure he's dead." One of them shoots Saren before confirming that he is. {{spoiler|Of course, that doesn't stop Sovereign from animating the Reaper tech that was implanted in Saren.}}

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Horror Tropes]]

[[Category:Once Is Not Enough]]