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One Riot, One Ranger: Difference between revisions
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A common handwave/justification for this trope is that a full military assault would draw unwanted attention to the operation. As in, if we send an army to [[Storming the Castle|attack the secret base]], the villain will just use his superweapon, and game over. But if we send Joe the Badass, the villain won't react so intensely, and we can get past his guard. More realistically, the entire army may be needed just to hold the villain's army at bay, or at least slow them down long enough to give Joe the Badass time to stop the villain. Of course, this depends on the bad guy being completely [[Genre Blind]]... If Joe makes a habit of succeeding at these missions he'll get a reputation for [[Doing the Impossible]].
Related to [[It's Up to You]] and [[The Only One]]. Can involve liberal [[Conservation of Ninjutsu]].
{{examples}}
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== [[Comic Books]] ==
* During the police-strike riots in ''[[Watchmen]]'', the "One Ranger" was [[Person of Mass Destruction|Dr. Manhattan]]. Yup, that'll definitely do it. But averted with the other heroes, who tried to calm the riots by themselves and failed utterly.
** [[Sociopathic Hero|Rorschach]] managed to quell the riots in his neighbourhood just by appearing.
** The Comedian....did his own thing. By that, see how [[Invader Zim]] handles fires.
* Deconstructed in ''[[Echo]]''. Ivy Raven, [[Action Girl|NSB field agent]], contacts her superiors and begins to get guidance from her Washington organization on locating and stopping the Phi Project, the military/corporate experiment that might end life on Earth as we know it. However, Julie Martin [[Genre Savvy|wonders why they have not received any support or personnel to help deal with the potentially Apocalyptic scenario]]. This causes Ivy to begin to think about it and she starts to agree with Julie that this might have some unpleasant implications as to the trustworthiness of her superiors
* In one ''[[Judge Dredd]]'' comic after the "Judge Cal" arc, the Judges are trying to figure out how to clean up a district that had become totally lawless. The council wants to send in a small army of Judges. Dredd decides that they need to send a different message and convinces them to just send one. Dredd went into the district with nothing but his gun and a dump truck. He left, totally unharmed, with a dump truck full of criminals.
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** Man-power shortage? This is James Bond! He's too-much man for the bad guys to handle!
** But Bond first has to investigate the situation, which is a task better suited to a spy. On several occasions he's backed up by an attack force for the [[Storming the Castle]] scene -- never the SAS, but then again an army of modern ninjas looks more 'James Bondish'.
* The first ''[[XXX]]'' movie is a perfect example. The US government knew where the terrorists were, knew who they were, and had a good idea what they were doing, but rather than send in several highly trained multi-man strike teams, they send in Vin Diesel.
** To be fair, the opening sequence was the government losing one of their highly-trained intelligence operatives to the bad guys, who had clearly [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|read their book]]. And sending in strike teams when they don't have any actual evidence, as such, leads to... complications.
* In ''[[Escape from New York]],'' the government sends in Snake as a last resort, but in ''[[Escape From L.A.]],'' the president consciously utilizes the trope.
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* The series premiere of ''[[Walker, Texas Ranger]]'' was called "One Riot, One Ranger." However, in practice, Walker's almost always backed up by Trivette, and for larger operations a full assortment of law enforcement units help out. However, there are quite a few episodes where he does it alone because no one but [[Chuck Norris]] can do it.
* This trope is pretty much the entire justification for ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''.
** Although the show could be considered a subversion, as it's often pointed out that the only reason Buffy has been the most successful and long-lived Slayer is that ''she's not alone.'' By working with a team, she is much more powerful than just a lone Slayer.
** The Watcher's Council (before Buffy) seemed to employ a we have reserves concept. It didn't matter if a slayer died in an impossible mission, the next one would succeed. Or the the one after that.
* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' has this philosophy for the Rangers. It doesn't always work, and they have back-up, but it's mentioned in one spin-off. "One crisis, one ranger."
** The specific crisis? One ranger sacrificed his life to give everyone else key intelligence.
** Especially earlier in the series, the Rangers specialize in being discreet, as evidenced by the fact that they show up [[Meaningful Background Event|mixed in with the extras]] in several episodes of the show before they are actually introduced. At least one main character whose job it is to be [[Properly Paranoid]] turns his head to pay attention to one of them before he is told about their existence. [[The Lancer|Another character]] who insists on [[The Omniscient|knowing everything that happens]] on her station, reveals that she [[Crowning Moment of Funny|knows everything about them already]] just as [[The Captain]] is about to brief her on their existence.
*** Later in the series, they are able to send lone Rangers (or lone [[Cool Starship|White Stars]], the Rangers' ship of choice) to deal with problems, because everybody knows by then that they represent [[The Alliance]]. On occasion, [[Averted Trope|it still doesn't help.]]
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* [[Justified]] in ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'', where a Navy SEAL team is sent into Big Shell and promptly slaughtered by one of the villains. {{spoiler|1=Even worse, the SEAL team was sent in as a decoy, so that Raiden would be able to infiltrate undetected. High Command didn't just know the SEALs were in danger, they purposely sent them to their deaths.}}
** Actually subverted in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'', at first, it may seem like the government's putting a lot of faith in Snake's abilities, but in the end, it's revealed {{spoiler|the entire point of sending him was to spread a biological weapon and kill everyone}}.
* Commandos in ''[[Command
* This fits Samus Aran of ''[[Metroid]]'' to a T. The first time is a subversion in that the Galactic federation already tried and failed a large scale attack, so in desperation sent a lone bounty hunter. After she utterly annihilated everything, standard procedure became, "Send Samus first."
** Not an exaggeration. In [[Metroid Prime]] 3, the Federation is [[Genre Savvy]] enough to hold off its entire space armada while Samus forges ahead on her own twice: {{spoiler|The Space Pirate Homeworld first and then Phaaze immediately afterward}}. Even after the Federation's [[Took a Level In Badass|badass upgrade]], they're not stupid.
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* This trope was the promotional [[Tagline]] for ''[[Bravestarr]]''.
** Occasionally applied to one of its [[Space Western]] brothers, too. Some ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers|Galaxy Rangers]]'' episodes only had a single one of the main characters present (the Supertrooper duology, featuring [[The Lancer]] Shane Gooseman, are the most prominent examples), and were usually split into teams of two.
== [[Real Life]] ==
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