Punch-Punch-Punch Uh-Oh/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: No matter how many blows the hero delivers to the villain, he seems unharmed.

  • Straight: Bob, our hero, is punching David, our villain, with great power, but David seems unimpressed, even amused.
  • Exaggerated: Even with the most powerful Ki Attacks and Dangerous Forbidden Techniques, David, unharmed, says it tickles.
  • Downplayed: Bob punches Dave who gets hurt but not much.
  • Justified: David is Made of Iron, or perhaps trained to ignore pain, or perhaps he's just flippin' insane.
    • Bob is extremely weak and stupidly overconfident.
  • Inverted: Bob attacks David with ridiculously weak punches, which David succumbs to as if he were given deadly blows.
    • Bob tries to attack Dave who dodges his blows easily.
    • Role Inverted: David delivers powerful blows to Bob, but Bob isn't phased and gives David the what-for.
  • Subverted: David seemingly shows no pain from those body blows of Bob's as he's about to attack back, but then he suddenly collapses from ruptured guts.
    • Bob punches David with great power, then quickly realizing that it's not going to work. He then pokes David's eyes out before David could punch back.
  • Double Subverted: David's faking the severity of his wounds to trick Bob into ceasing the attack, and then he'll give him an ultimatum.
  • Parodied: Bob practically kills David, but he comes back to life and says "Gotcha!".
  • Deconstructed: David takes the punches without flinching, but is later shown to have suffered severe internal damage offscreen.
    • Bob notices David isn't being hurt, and flees at the earliest opportunity. He comes back with a chainsaw.
  • Reconstructed: David does get hurt by Bob, but shows Determinator level willpower and turns the fight around.
    • Dave is not only tough but fast, he chases down Bob before he can get a weapon.
  • Zig Zagged: Both Bob and David can't hurt each other, and settle for more and more over the top attacks that do little more than destroy the scenery.
  • Averted: David is hurt by Bob's attacks.
  • Enforced: "We need to show that the villain is a threat. Let's have him withstand any of Bob's attacks."
  • Lampshaded: Bob: "Oh hell! That was my most powerful attack, and he just brushes it off!"
  • Invoked: Bob expects David to show no pain so he can continue to thrash him.
  • Defied: Bob keeps punching David until he's good and hurt.
  • Discussed: Bob: "I'm gonna have to use better attacks, I hear David's impervious to pain."
  • Conversed: "The villain's never hurt by stuff like that, he'll just wipe the floor with the hero afterwards."

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