Pregnant Badass/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A woman is capable of kicking ass and taking names despite being heavily pregnant.

  • Straight: Emperor Evulz has sent his Mooks to kidnap Rachel, who is eight months pregnant. Despite being outnumbered and physically disadvantaged, Rachel manages to dispatch several of them.
  • Exaggerated: Rachel leads her forces into battle against Emperor Evulz's armies and storms his fortress while actually giving birth.
  • Justified: Considering that Rachel is nine months pregnant, Evulz's mooks believe that subduing her will be an easy matter. This lulls them into a false sense of security and they put their guard down, enabling Rachel to get the drop on them despite her physical disadvantage.
    • Rachel is prepared for Evulz's goons to track her down and has managed to secure herself in a hard-to-reach location that is advantageous to her. She is also heavily armed and capable of killing them before they get near her.
    • Rachel -- or the child she is carrying -- is supernaturally gifted, and is able to use these skills to defend herself even during pregnancy.
  • Inverted: Rachel was a badass before she became pregnant, but turns into a complete Damsel in Distress once she is.
  • Subverted: Although Rachel puts up a brief struggle, she is easily subdued.
    • Rachel considers putting up a fight, but realizes the possible damage to her unborn child and is unwilling to risk it. She surrenders herself.
    • Rachel is perfectly willing to go down fighting in spite of being disadvantaged but the Mooks sent to get her are not heartless and ruthless monsters that would harm a pregnant woman and in spite of being perfectly able to take her they let her beat them up.
  • Doubly Subverted: Rachel feints giving up to allow her attackers to take her into custody without risking harm to herself or her baby; she escapes from their custody in an even more badass fashion than simply fighting them would have been.
  • Parodied: Rachel's ability to easily kick the asses of the thugs she is surrounded with stems completely from her being pregnant in the first place, involves things such as her completely out-of-control hormones, the pent-up frustration resulting from the bad back and hemorrhoids that have been tormenting her for days, etc.
    • In a Dead Baby Comedy, she uses her unborn baby as a shield, using the extra tissue to block blows or even throws herself into the fight specifically to have an abortion.
    • She gives birth during the fight, and the baby immediately starts attacking mooks left and right.
  • Deconstructed: As soon as she dispatches the villains, Rachel grasps her stomach in pain; the exertion and damage she and her unborn child received during the fight triggers a miscarriage, which torments Rachel with grief and guilt and makes her a more vulnerable target.
  • Reconstructed: Given that the choice is between potentially losing the baby in a fight, and being kidnapped and likely killed, losing the baby anyway, Rachel makes extensive use of cover and defensive tactics to keep her and her baby safe, keeping a distance and using a ranged weapon.
  • Zig Zagged: Rachel puts up a fight, but thinks better of it and surrenders herself, but then starts fighting again, but then becomes a weeping, panicking wreck. The confused Mooks theorize that her hormones are completely out of control, but it turns out that she's lulling them into a false state of security...
  • Averted: Rachel in her current condition poses no realistic threat or possible resistance to the mooks.
  • Enforced: Rachel's character is supposed to be an Action Girl at the centre of the series, but Rachel discovered that she was pregnant halfway through the series. The writers decided to incorporate Rachel's pregnancy into the story and hope that Willing Suspension of Disbelief (and a Crowning Moment of Awesome or two) would get them through it rather than try to cover it up.
  • Lampshaded: "I don't understand it! How the hell did a woman just about to drop manage to hand us all our asses?"
    • "You'll have to forgive me, I'm kicking ass for two now."
  • Invoked: Despite being pregnant, Rachel has committed herself to being prepared to combat her enemies at any time.
    • Rachel is defending her own child, and her Mama Bear instincts give her an edge.
  • Defied: Evulz chooses a moment when Rachel's pregnancy is least likely to enable her to offer resistance to strike.
  • Discussed: "I still wouldn't get on the wrong side of Rachel -- pregnant or not, she could probably kick your ass any time."
  • Conversed: "Okay, I seriously doubt that Rachel is able to stand upright for longer than ten minutes at this point in the story, much less defeat Evulz's entire army."

Be with you at Pregnant Badass in a sec...let me just elevate my legs... Surprise! [Roundhouse kick]