Worf Had the Flu: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

A type of fandom-based [[Author's Saving Throw]], this is the specific rationalization that a character suffering from [[The Worf Effect]] or a [[Curb Stomp Battle]] did so only because something (artificially) undermined their performance. The insinuation, of course, is that it probably wouldn't have happened this way under "normal" circumstances.

** The Wolkenritter are less at an advantage over Nanoha and Fate's group because they have sworn [[Thou Shalt Not Kill|not to kill anyone]] [[Hero Antagonist|in their quest to save Hayate]]. Despite managing to fight off Signum until she retreats or outside forces interfere, Fate loses most of her sparring matches against Signum in the period after A's.

* Prior to his first battle with Mukuro, Hibari from ''[[Katekyo Hitman Reborn]]'' literally had been injected with a flu, causing him to get [[Curb Stomp Battle|curb-stomped]] despite being at least Mukuro's equal in fighting prowess.

** Ash's Pikachu gets a taste of this in the very first episode of the Unova saga. {{spoiler|An encounter with Zekrom, one of Unova's Legendaries,}} overloads Pikachu's electricity-storing capability and thus renders it unable to use Electric-type attacks. Ash finds this out the hard way when the 'Chu gets trounced in a battle with a trainer who had, mere minutes earlier, received his first Pokémon.

** "Charizard Chills" has the title Pokémon critically frozen after battle with a Poliwrath. His respect as well as loyalty for his trainer returned after Ash spent all night trying to thaw him out.

*** Later, he also suffers a wing injury during the battle against the Johto gym leader Faulkner, giving him a little bit of trouble against the leader's Pidgeot.

* ''[[Digimon Savers]]'': In one episode, one of Masaru's punches breaks SaberLeomon's tooth. This wouldn't be out of character for him except that an earlier attempt to punch SaberLeomon had significantly less effect, and prior to the second attempt SaberLeomon had just taken a [[Killed Off for Real|Gizumon blast]], severely weakening him to the point when an Ultimate level Digimon could blow him up.

* In ''[[Tokyo Mew Mew]]'', Ichigo gets attacked by Kisshu in Episode 17 while she's sick, resulting in her being unable to defend herself and [[Mysterious Protector|the Blue Knight]] appearing for the first time to save her.

* [[Muhyo and Roji]] takes a long time to recover his tempering after a sentencing, so when a problem arises soon afterward, he's often unable to intervene immediately. As such, after the group defeats Face-Ripper Sophie, only for {{spoiler|Rio to reveal herself as a traitor and attack them}}, they spend much of the battle retreating, and must brew Muhyo a dangerous potion to help him get his tempering back before they can effectively fight back.

 

== Comicbooks ==

* One of the more famous events in the history of the [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]] is the battle for leadership of the team between Cyclops and [[Storm]] - who at the time had no powers. Storm won by stealing Cyclops' [[Power Incontinence|visor]]. Without the control of the visor, any attempt to continue fighting would've run the risk of killing Storm (or any of the audience), so he gave up. Several years later, Cyclops' ex-wife Madelyne Pryor announced that she'd used her psychic powers to ''make'' Cyclops lose. This is a relatively easy [[Retcon]] since Cyclops spent much of the fight distracted by a major argument he and Madelyne had just been having, so to say he didn't exactly have his mind on the battle was very easy to change into a result of Madelyne's direct influence.

** And when Superman fought Muhammad Ali, the aliens behind the [[Let's You and Him Fight]] had made sure it was under red star radiation.

* Several defeats and cases of [[Badass Decay]], of villains who were revealed to be members of The Intelligencia in [[Fall of the Hulks]] were explained to be staged for heroes as [[Kansas City Shuffle|distractions from their true schemes]].

* When [[Supergirl]] first returned in 2004, she was shown outperforming [[Superman]] to the point where it was speculated that she might actually be more powerful. It turned out, this was meant to show that Superman [[World of Cardboard Speech|had been holding himself back]] all these years out of fear of causing death or destruction (which Supergirl in fact does in the early issues because she [[Does Not Know His Own Strength|doesn't know her own strength]].)

** So when the yellow-clad Weapons Master does fight the flu-ish Superman, this ironically makes Big Blue that much more dangerous. As he tries to explain to the bad people, he doesn't know if he can stop his punches from taking off heads.

* ''[[Preacher (Comic Book)]]''; the flashback history of the hero's dad. All sorts of horrific things end up happening to Daddy simply because his army buddy was too damned stupid to go get the flu treated.

* When Erik Larsen subjected the [[Incredible Hulk (Comic Book)|Incredible Hulk]] to [[The Worf Effect]] at the hands of [[Took a Level In Badass|new, improved]] Doctor Octopus, [[Peter David]], who had been writing Hulk comics at that point, wrote him beating Octopus with two fingers, saying that last time he simply "had a bad day".

* Hulk was on the receiving end of a [[Curb Stomp Battle]] at the hands of Zeus. That wasn't because of this; rather, that battle was the flu to set up for the next story arch, which required the Hulk to be significantly weaker than his powerlevel at the time normally allowed.

* In ''[[Wolverine]]'' ''Origins'', Dog only attacks James (the future Wolverine) after James exhausted himself cage-fighting during the previous night. Dog had also slipped one of James' opponents a set of brass knuckles to make sure James would be injured even worse. And James ''still'' nearly kills Dog after Dog makes him remember that {{spoiler|Dog was the one who fired the shot that killed James' father.}}

 

== Film ==

** In the same film, the ''Enterprise''-B was so new most of its equipment wouldn't be in until Tuesday, and was only being taken out for a spin for the sake of the news crews. Also, it turns out that Earth, the main planet of the Federation, had no other available ships, leaving the ''Enterprise'' as the only one in the sector, [[Ass Pull|because... uh, because... um...]]

* In ''[[Hellbound Hellraiser II]]'', many fans were disappointed to see Series villain Pinhead and his cronies taken out by the new Cenobite, Dr. Channard. Many have written off his easy defeat due to him being weakened and disoriented by learning he was once human, a notion supported by Hellbound screenwriter Peter Atkins.

* ''[[Predators]]'' does this when {{spoiler|a predator from the old films faces a predator from this movie. The classic Predator has been tied up for a while and has poorly maintained equipment allowing for leeway when the new predator wins the fight, but even with this, he still puts up a hell of a fight.}}

 

* In ''[[Inheritance Cycle|Brisingr]]'', Paolini has made certain that Eragon has not had time to recuperate to his full strength since achieving his super-human power.

** A more straight example would be at the end of ''Eldest'', when {{spoiler|Murtagh defeats Eragon while the latter is exhausted from battle.}} However, this was subverted when Eragon {{spoiler|fought Murtagh for the second time. He was fully rested, at full power, and had thirteen elves assisting him, but still only managed to drive Murtagh off.}}

 

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* Episode six of ''[[Dollhouse]]'' features this canonically on ''both sides'': when Ballard and Echo fight, on the surface it seems like it might be an even match that could go either way. Echo with her programming is probably the better technical fighter, but Ballard is very big, built like a brick house, and so tough he can take out four gun-wielding thugs with a plank ''after'' he's been shot--plus, he's a trained fighter, so all of ''his'' experience is real. However, he ''had'' been shot mere days ago, and was not looking to actually hurt Echo, as she's his best link to the case. Cue him fighting defensively and eventually getting worn down. On the flip side, Echo was also fighting in order to frame Ballard for shooting a cop, not to actually win, so while she wasn't fighting to win either, her goals were served by simply getting him to the right place at the right time and disappearing.

* Spike's attempted rape of [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]] in "Seeing Red" only got as far as it did because a run-of-the-mill vampire had got a lucky shot in earlier (as she was staking him, no less). Both injuries carry over into Buffy's fight with a superpowered Warren - even with super-strength and near-invulnerability, he can tell she's off her game.

* The eponymous star of ''[[Angel]]'' has a long history of losing fights with Slayers. Then, in the episode "Release", he managed a narrow victory over Faith (after a wonderfully brutal fight). Not only was Faith still recovering from a severe beating the previous day at the hands of an indestructible demon, the very next episode it was revealed that at the start of her fight with Angel she had pumped herself full of magic heroin.

** In another instance, Hamilton stomping over Illyria happened only after she had been massively depowered, and it's probably telling that Hamilton didn't go anywhere near her until this had happened, and in fact when Wesley was studying her gave him a hint that led him to discover how to drain her powers. He even goes into an exaggerated [[Smug Snake]] routine to Illyria's face as he ponders why she can't beat him to a pulp.

* An inversion takes place in ''[[Mahou Sentai Magiranger]]'', where the Heavenly Saint Lunagel is defeated in battle by Wolzard partly because she went on her own, but mostly because he'd spent the past four episodes doing nothing but powering up.

 

== Videogames ==

* This happens at the start of some ''[[Metroid]]'' sequels. Samus loses all of her equipment or has something happen, to justify the player having to collect what Samus had at the start of the game. Also, in ''[[Metroid Zero Mission]]'' there is a sequence at the end which embodies this trope. {{spoiler|Samus only has her emergency stun pistol and no equipment.}}

* In ''[[Super Robot Wars Original Generation]] Gaiden'', many people seems to come to term that Lamia Loveless was hit with this trope that she accidentally got hit by so many [[Distress Ball|Distress Balls]]. She only got caught by the Bartolls on the first place because she was not in her mecha (the same goes to Kusuha, Arado, Seolla and Latooni), and later on, Juergen managed to 'kill' her because for the same reason, added by the fact that she was just recently and forcefully been plugged out from her cockpit that binds her. She doesn't really have much impact after being rescued, but should you bring her to battle against the Bartolls in Chapter 34, she will express disgust on the Bartolls and show them that in the right conditions, they are no match for her. Unfortunately, however, she could never do it on Juergen (nor that she has any special lines against him when they face off in Free Battle).

* The first Yellow Squadron member shot down in ''[[Ace Combat]] 4'', Yellow {{spoiler|Four}}, is revealed to have sortied with poorly-maintained engines.

** In ''Zero'' Gelb 2 mentions that his squad would often be sent from one mission to another without even any basic maintenance on their planes. The result is a slightly easier Ace fight.

* Given the power levels of many ''[[Touhou]]'' characters this trope is used by many fans to explain the defeat of certain characters, since everyone in Gensokyo is battling under the Spellcard system, and if they weren't [[Holding Back the Phlebotinum]], the fighting between magicians, time-stopper, ancient vampires, embodiments of death and afterlife, immortals, wielder of '''NUCLEAR POWER''', and assortments of gods would have wiped Gensokyo off the map. And Yukari would pretty much beat everyone.

* In ''[[Warriors Orochi]]'', this is how the Orochi beats the Tokugawa. They arrive and launched their attack on Edo castle just in time when [[Badass|Honda Tadakatsu]] is away scouting the area. Considering Tadakatsu is often considered ''[[Samurai Warriors]]''' [[Dynasty Warriors|Lu Bu]], the battle might have a different outcome if he is ever present.

** '''''Fate'' route:''' At the start of the route Archer is [[Game-Breaking Injury|surprised and grievously wounded by Saber]], who he didn't particularly want to fight. He is then sent against Berserker, who can [[No Sell]] everything but his most exhausting attacks.

** '''''Unlimited Blade Works'' route:''' Archer spends most of his time trying to [[The Chessmaster|manipulate events]] rather than fighting (on the two occasions he ''does'' fight, his enemy runs away after one attack). After this, he is cut off from his source of mana and his power fades until he's only keeping his body together through sheer willpower.

** Then there's Rider having a limited mana supply and not wanting to obey her Master's commands until the ''Heaven's Feel'' route, and {{spoiler|Gilgamesh}} refusing to wear his armour against someone he viewed as an inferior opponent... really, this could be applied to most characters in the game at some point.

** In all routes, Saber starts out being improperly summoned by someone who can barely use magic, so she has an incomplete connection to his mana and therefore has to recharge herself very often with large amounts of sleep and food, even if she uses only a little bit of her power. This is exacerbated by the fact that she took a cursed, slow-healing stab close to the heart soon after being summoned. It also doesn't help that, due to worries that Shirou's lack of mage skill would leave him open to mind magics, she doesn't let him know her true identity and holds off on using her Noble Phantasm even more than any other Servant. And of course, her Master being unwilling to risk her life if he can avoid it and being unwilling to fight as ruthlessly as possible is a pretty hefty handicap for a Servant of the Grail War as well, even though she herself isn't really all that much more ruthless than he is (especially compared to all the non Rin and {{spoiler|Good Sakura}} Masters). The other Servants aren't pushovers by any stretch of the word, but as the two times she got a competent mage as a master showed, there is a REASON she's considered the strongest class.

* Arcuied is operating far below her normal power in ''[[Tsukihime]]'', as she is still recovering from Shiki slicing her into pieces, and has to devote almost all her strength to suppressing her bloodlust. This is probably a good thing for the sake of the plot, though, as with access to her full abilities, she has [[Story-Breaker Power]] and would curb stomp everyone in about ten seconds flat. {{spoiler|And in Ciel's route, where she does gain back some of her power, it's [[Woman Scorned|not a good thing]].}}

** The statue's outstretched hand slamming into Kratos while his back was turned didn't do him any favors either.

** {{spoiler|Thane}}, however, get's the last laugh, as Kai's main mission was to assasinate someone else, which had failed because, as {{spoiler|Thane puts it, "he let a terminally ill drell stop him from completing his mark"}}

 

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

** Durkon rationalises that the rain that prohibited the team from working effectively the first time they battled Miko was a divine sign that they weren't going to win this one. However, she did beat them a second time without the rain slowing the party down. Or he could've been trying to justify why he surrendered the first time and only healed the second time.

** Roy's comment, [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0251.html "Stupid railroad plot,"] lampshades this nicely.

 

== Western Animation ==

** {{spoiler|This even applies in the [[Grand Finale]]. Although Zuko had gained insights into Firebending long lost to his people and was more emotionally centered than he had been in his life, it is likely that Azula's [[Villainous Breakdown|near-total psychological collapse]] was the only reason he was winning their [[Final Battle]]...[[Batman Gambit|and even at the end his attempt to out-think her]] nearly got him killed. To be fair, Zuko was originally supposed to fight Azula helped by Katara, and changed his mind at the last moment after noticing that Azula wasn't at 100%.}}

* In ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'', Dermot "[[Blatant Lies|claims]]" the only reason Dean beat him up in a [[Wimp Fight]] was because he was sick at the time. Did I mention throughout that entire episode Dermot "claimed" that his hands were registered as lethal weapons.