The Coats Are Off/Playing With

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Basic Trope: A character removes their coat and becomes significantly more dangerous.

  • Played Straight: While struggling against his enemy Bob, Alex removes his trenchcoat and begins to dominate the fight.
  • Exaggerated: Alex can never win while wearing his trenchcoat, even against the weakest Mooks, so is constantly donning and removing it.
  • Justified: Alex wears the coat to hide multiple weapons hidden on his body, and removes it only when he needs access to said weapons.
    • The coat is weighted and limits Alex's range of motion; removing it lets him move with much greater ease.
  • Inverted: The coat grants Alex additional speed, strength, and durability; removing it weakens him greatly.
  • Subverted: Alex removes his coat with a flourish, putting Bob on guard at Alex "getting serious"... only for Bob to take him out with a single blow...
  • Double Subverted: ...except Alex gets back up and tells Bob that was a "free shot" before taking Bob apart.
  • Parodied: Alex throws off his longcoat... then his shirt... then his pants... at which point Bob shouts that they're a PG program.
  • Deconstructed: Bob attacks Alex while he's only halfway out of the coat. With his arms trapped in the sleeves, Alex is badly beaten.
  • Reconstructed: Alex trains himself to remove the coat faster and even how to use it as a weapon while removing it so Bob can't jump him any longer.
  • Averted: Alex never changes clothes during his fights; he either wears the coat the whole time or not at all.
  • Enforced: Due to contract limitations, Alex can't wear the coat during any action sequence for fear of it getting caught or tripping him; as such any fight sequence where Alex is wearing the coat has limited contact and movement from Alex.
  • Lampshaded: "Do you really think you can beat me while you're still wearing your coat, Alex? I'm at least tough enough to warrant you taking it off before the fight's over!"
  • Invoked: Alex wears the coat specifically so he can throw it off with a flourish in midfight and look cool.
  • Defied: Bob was conserving his strength for Alex's last big push and easily handles the change.
  • Discussed: "Taking off the coat? I wonder how much that will really help you..."
  • Conversed: "Why does Alex bother wearing that coat? He always ends up taking it off to fight somebody." "Yeah, but he looks pretty cool when he's wearing the coat and when he's throwing it to the side." "So he just likes to showoff? And I thought he was a decent guy, too..."

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