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Redemption Demotion: Difference between revisions
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[[Heel Face Turn|And then he switches sides]], and it all goes to hell. Suddenly, he's [[Promoted to Unlockable|just one of the gang]], not substantially stronger than the others. He's decidedly ''less'' powerful than the leader of the good guys. This phenomenon is related to [[Villain Decay]].
Very common in [[RPG|RPGs]], since the [[Promoted to Unlockable|"playable" versions of the characters]] tend to have many fewer [[Hit Points]], fewer and less impressive abilities, and generally worse stats than the "boss" versions. In older games, they even got ''physically smaller'', since hero sprites were much smaller than enemy ones. Usually, this is a [[Gameplay and Story Segregation]], since it wouldn't exactly be [[It's Easy, So It Sucks|very fun to just pick "Mind Erasing Maimblaster" over and over again]].
'''There are a number of possible, rational justifications for why a villain-turned-ally is suddenly weaker than before:'''
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* Played straight in ''[[Digimon Adventure 02]]'', where the first Big Bad, who was in fact the Emperor of the Digital World, joins the team and is, for the most part, not able to defeat Digimon he would have earlier brainwashed easily. To be fair, part of turning good required giving up the massive brainwashed armies he would have used, as well as the [[Applied Phlebotinum]] he used to take control of them so easily.
** It even turns out that Ken's genius and ability in sports was heavily (it's unclear how much precisely) augmented by his being infected with the Dark Spore. In the dub, Oikawa outright states that ''this'' is what made Ken a genius, so theoretically, with the spore dormant...
** Also, in the original ''[[Digimon Adventure]]'', Gatomon/Tailmon was capable of taking out the entire group of the Digidestined Champion-level Digimon, but when she joins the group, she has to Digivolve to Angewomon to take part in the battles. This is even worse in Digimon Adventure 02, where Gatomon loses her Tail Ring and is effectively reduced to the level of a Rookie for most of the series. She has to use a DigiEgg to have access to Champion-level power.
* In ''[[Naruto]]'' there is a [[Zig Zagged Trope|zig-zagged example]] Gaara. A psychopathic villain who would kill without a second thought, he severely injured one of the main characters, and it looked like he was about to kill Sasuke. After losing to Naruto, he becomes an ally, and loses the drive/ruthlessness/insanity that let him be so completely over the top in a quest to justify his existence with destruction. Even then he was doing better against Kimimaro than Naruto and Lee in [[Drunken Master]] mode - they could barely even hit him even when his curse mark wasn't active, and Gaara was mostly winning against him even when his curse mark reached Level 2. He lost to Deidara due to sacrificing offence in order to protect his city (leading to him {{spoiler|actually getting ''killed'' having his sealed beast extracted, only to be revived by another character at the cost of her life}}). He also became a ''Kage'' at age ''15'', beating Naruto to the punch, and when his rematch with {{spoiler|Sasuke}} started, he clearly had the upper hand due to {{spoiler|his sand absorbing the Amaterasu}}. Ultimately, {{spoiler|he becomes ''more powerful'' then when he had his sealed beast, and even powerful than the sealed beast itself.}}
* Jun Manjoume begins ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'' as a snobby but respected duelist in the Obelisk Blue dorms (the highest-ranked class) and a rival to Judai. As the series plays its course, Manjoume leaves the school, returns (but is [[Break the Haughty|forced into low-class Osiris Red]]), grudgingly becomes pals with the gang, and gains an obnoxious spirit partner in the form of Ojama Yellow. He also becomes something of a joke, especially when it comes to his crush on Asuka. At least Season 4 was about him regaining his old strength -- talk about coming full circle.
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*** Subverted and played straight at the same time when [[Wrestler/Sting|Sting]] was exiled from the Main Event Mafia in TNA. He offered MEM member [[Kevin Nash]] a ball bat and turned his back, testing whether or not Nash would have the courage or lack thereof to hit him from behind. Sting had a second ball bat concealed in his trench coat which he used on the Mafia when Nash was about to swing. Trope is still played straight in the fact that Sting was still in a six-on-one situation and when the Mafia got the advantage, they had TWO baseball bats to use on Sting.
* Subverted by [[The Undertaker]], as regardless of his status, he's the most powerful wrestler on the card.
* When a monster heel is brought into the company, he wins nearly every match, with many of them being [[Squash Match|squash matches]]. After his face turn, he will become easier to beat and his win/loss record will show that (e.g. Yokozuna, [[Vader]], Great Khali, [[Mark Henry]], Vladmir Kozlov).
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* Certainly not averted in ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' -- Edea the Evil Uber-Hot Gothy Witch Queen [[Fetish Fuel]] chick is the [[Big Bad]] of the first act -- and turns into a rather weak playable character thereafter (additionally no longer ruling the world). It's rather a disappointment when you unlock her and think "Oooh, yay!" and then end up with a somewhat wussy sorceress.
** If it's not averted, it's [[Justified Trope|justified]], at least. The reason she becomes good in the first place is that she loses all her sorceress powers which made her powerful (and brainwashed) to Rinoa, thus making her a normal human being. When Squall tries to physically stop the brainwashed Rinoa from leaving the lunar base, he gets launched into the nearest wall. However, when you get Rinoa back, she isn't one bit more powerful than before (except for having a new [[Limit Break]]).
*** In her limit break, however, has five times her magic stat (beyond the normal cap of 255), and slightly enhanced speed. Unfortunately, for most people, this limit break will be useless, because she casts spells semi-randomly. 9/10 she'll cast scan, over and over, as opposed to spells that actually hurt enemies. Due to the Cap on damage, even if you remove all the useless spells, and fill her up with ultima or firaga or tornado, it's [[Awesome but Impractical]], as you'll do 9999 damage instead of 8000 in a game where 100000 is a decent amount of boss health. The [[Health Damage Asymmetry]] hurts you a lot. If, however, you use meltdown, a spell that weakens enemies, and meteor, a spell that does 10 weak hits, and boost her speed up with haste and speed junctions, she can do 99990 damage per round, and that several times a second. You can then defeat the ultimate sorceress' 1st form in 1/3 of a second, second form in 2/3s of a second, and third in one second.
* In ''[[Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories]]'' and ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'', Riku loses most of the independence and ambition that he had when he was on the Dark Side, and leaves all the hero work to Sora (though he does regain his cool at the very end of ''[[Kingdom Hearts]] II'', but still...)
** The same can be said about Roxas, as when he is fought as an enemy in the [[No Export for You]] version, he's far more powerful than when you played as him.
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** This actually doesn't count--while the pet may lose any special skills and their name, their actual ''stats'' go through the roof, not to mention their level if you went back to an old zone for one.
** Another note: In regards to the pet's level-- it is possible, with a particular talent, to tame "The Beast" in the instance [[Leeroy Jenkins]] made famous. The Beast's level is...?? (boss). Upon taming it, it will lose most of its HP (In the wild, this beastie has ~86K, the most you'll ever see a Hunter Pet have is 35K-ish with high end [[PvP]] gear.) and a lot of its attack power, but gain the Talent Points for Your Level -5, and acts as any other Core Hound... however, it retains its displayed level (?? (Boss))...RuleOfCool, much?
* ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]]'' has this with pretty much every legendary you can recruit.
** By hacking the data it is possible to see that you actually get a copy of the recruitable boss upon defeating it. The boss version has higher stats in all areas, but most notably HP. They have 500 to 900% more HP than the playable copy you get.
** Common recruitable pokémon also suffer this: as enemies they have 300 to 600 IQ points, but once recruited they lose all the IQ points and all the IQ skills learned.
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* Inverted and played normally in ''[[Baten Kaitos]]'' over the course of ''a single battle'': one of your party members pretends to switch sides in order to get the rest of the party to "test your strength," rejoining the party after that battle. The party member has 3300 hit points during this battle. Now, the mechanics of the game are such that bosses don't have all that many more HP than the party members (the ratio is more like 3:1 rather than 20:1), and this party member ''will'' actually reach 3300+ HP in the course of the game (assuming you level her up), but at the time when this pitched battle occurs, it's still more than the high-three-digit HP values your party will probably have at that point in the story.
* Justified in ''[[Neverwinter Nights 2]]'': by the point {{spoiler|Ammon Jerro}} joins you, he has just been stripped of his incredible power as a result of {{spoiler|Shandra}} freeing the bound demons that powered him.
* Inverted in the first two ''((X-COM))'' games. Your mooks are inaccurate (even with training) and stupid... but when they get their brains sucked out and replaced with green alien goo they become much more capable, accurate and dangerous. "Durrr, I'm shooting at something I can't even see on the other side of a bookshelf, and ignoring the thing sneaking up on me." (wet slurping noises) "[[Boom! Headshot!]]! [[Boom! Headshot!]]! [[Boom! Headshot!]]!"
* Lampshaded in [[Cthulhu Saves the World]], where [[Talking Sword|Sharp]]'s in-combat description is "Has a much higher max HP now than he will in a couple minutes." Also inverted, as he initially sees Cthulhu as the villain ([[Eldritch Abomination|With good reason]]).
* In ''[[Sonny]]'', Felicity is an early-game boss battle, with 2500 HP. When she joins you at end game, she has... 2500 HP. Which wouldn't seem too bad, except you and your enemies will probably be doing about 1500 damage per hit, not counting special attacks, making her an ultra-brittle [[Glass Cannon]].
* Subverted and then ''inverted'' in Venus Blood saga, especially in it's newest instalment, not only any character that joins you won't be any weaker than as an enemy, but if you decide to corrupt the heroines, they'll become much powerful.
** And then there is VB: Frontier, where in the evil route you can corrupt them further, and the power up will be even greater, at the cost of sacrificing their abilities. Justified since the heroines either lose their sanity, or their bodies change and they can't keep fighting like they used to.
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[[Category:Goodness Tropes]]
[[Category:Good Is Dumb]]
[[Category:Heel Face Index]]▼
[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]
[[Category:Player Party]]
[[Category:Redemption Demotion]]
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