The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

One person or group considers another person or group as [[The Rival|their rival]], and will not allow anyone else to be the one to defeat them. This can sometimes lead to them [[Rivals Team Up|helping their rival]] [[Enemy Mine|against other enemies]], justifying it with [[I Was Just Passing Through|a lame excuse]], to make sure that they survive until the final battle between the rivals. Sometimes, this trope can become the basis of a [[Heel Face Turn]]. It also frequently leads to [[Not So Different]] and [[Antagonist in Mourning]].

 

 

Can lead into [[Foe Yay]] if this excuse is used too much; and opportunities to defeat the rival are not taken.

 

Compare [[Only I Can Kill Him]], for where the character in question really is the only one who can defeat the rival. Also compare [[Leave Him to Me]], [[Hypocritical Heartwarming]].

{{examples}}

* [[Black Butler]], especially season 2; Sebastian contractually owns Ciel's soul & literally kills anyone who tries to kill Ciel before he can, even other demons. In the anime he actually does try to murder Ciel.

* ''[[Gintama]]'' - Kamui [[In Love with Your Carnage|gets excited]] watching Gintoki fight Hosen. He declares Gintoki is his (prey) and that he won't allow anyone else to touch him. He even leaves Yoshiwara alone so that nobody will come after Gintoki, and to a lesser extent Kagura.

* In ''[[Rozen Maiden|Rozen Maiden Träumend]]'', the first season's [[Big Bad]] Suigintou gives an entire speech about how she will be the one to ultimately defeat Shinku {{spoiler|while taking a fatal barrage of crystal arrows, shielding Shinku from harm and dying in her arms}}.

* Pixy Misa in ''[[Pretty Sammy|Magical Project S]]'' often talks about how she will be the one to defeat Pretty Sammy and nobody else.

* This is pretty much Aptom's raison d'etre in ''[[Guyver]]'', his sole goal in life is to defeat Sho in combat.

* Until their promotion in ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]: Best Wishes'', the only reason that the Team Rocket trio continued to exist in the show was for the sole purpose of capturing Pikachu, giving it to their boss, and becoming ridiculously wealthy, according to their fantasies of how well their boss will reward them.

** He gives a similar response to [[Talkative Loon|Graham Spectre]], stating, "I like brazen, impudent guys that only I can kill." Graham may as well have [[Ho Yay|taken it for a love confession]].

* Yajirou towards The Jester in ''[[Grenadier]]'' after he finds out who he really is.

{{quote|'''Youhei:''' "It's got nothing to do with you."

'''Tomoyo:''' "Exactly. See you." (begins to walk away)

'''Youhei:''' "No! You're supposed to say, 'I don't want to see you lose to anyone other than me.'" }}

* In ''[[Battle B-daman]]'', [[Anti-Hero]] Enjyu is obsessed with defeating [[The Hero]] Yamato Delgato and ends up secretly helping the main gang because doing otherwise would let [[Big Bad]] Marda-B defeat Yamato.

** Or it is because, as Yami justifies it, so that she can stay on Earth since she likes it there.

* [[Large Ham|Graham]] [[Hot-Blooded|Aker]] of ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 00]]'' believes that he's the only one allowed to defeat Setsuna F. Seiei (or more to the point, Setsuna's Gundam). Setsuna has more important things to do.

* A really weird inverted example in ''[[Corsair]]'', where [[Career Killer|assassin-trained]] [[The Strategist|Kanare]] is only happy once he has [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|repeated assurances]] from his lover [[Badass|master-swordsman]] [[The Stoic|Ayace]] that if he goes on a killing spree Ayace will kill him. [[Sarcasm Mode|Uh-huh.]] [[Love Makes You Dumb|Suuuurrre.]]

* Hayato and Kaga in ''[[Future GPX Cyber Formula]]'', as Kaga sees his rivalry with Hayato as this.

* Arguably, both played straight and somewhat averted in ''[[Black Cat (manga)|Black Cat]]''. [[The Hero|Train]] and [[Complete Monster|Creed]] seem to have a mutual attitude along these lines, although neither of them actually go out of their way to help the other. Also, in volume four of the manga, an assassin appears who believes that killing is an art. After witnessing Train shoot '''bullets out of the air''', the assassin ignores his current target and leaves, before flat-out telling Train (paraphrased) "You'd better stay alive, so I can kill you myself." Averted, in that the character never makes another appearance.

* ''[[Medaka Box]]'': Pretty much invoked word for word by all of Medaka's former enemies, including the Plus in support for her against {{spoiler|Kumagawa}}.

* In ''[[Fate/Zero]]'', after Saber and Lancer's duel was interrupted by the other Servants getting in on the action, Lancer developed a major case of this towards Saber, [[I Was Just Passing Through|even going blatently out of his way to save her on numerous occasions.]] Given that, in said duel {{spoiler|she received an incurable wound that will only go away if she defeats him}}, the feeling is probably mutual.

* In chapter 213 of ''[[D.Gray-man]]'' Kanda tells Link "If your mission is to assassinate bean sprout (Allen), I'll cut you down where you stand. I'm the one who'll kill him."

 

== Comic Books ==

* When [[Superman]] was killed by Doomsday, [[Lex Luthor]] (disguised as his own son; long story) starts attacking the corpse of Superman-killer Doomsday in a rage with a chair. The people present assume it's because he's angry at Superman's murderer. He is, but not for the reasons they think.

** He reacted the same way (and for the same reason) when he thought the Silver Banshee had successfully killed Superman.

* Averted with tragicomic results in a Marvel ''What If?'' where [[The Punisher]] killed [[Spider-Man]] during their first meeting. Instead of being pissed, his rogue's gallery threw a party, with the Punisher as the guest of honor. Unfortunately for them, they've misunderstood the Punisher's motives, and he takes the opportunity to mow them all down.

* Megatron uses this trope to his advantage in the ''[[Transformers: Shattered Glass]]'' comics. He knows full well that an Autobot would never kill him out of fear of what Optimus would do to them later for destroying Megatron before he got the chance. They're even afraid to tell Optimus that Megatron MIGHT be dead. For those unfamiliar with ''[[Transformers: Shattered Glass|Shattered Glass]]'', it's a universe where the Autobots are evil conquerors and the Decepticons are heroic freedom fighters.

* Daken has this with his [[Wolverine|father]], he fought [[Deadpool]] when it seemed he was about to kill Logan. Of course Wolverine set the whole thing up.

* [[Incredible Hulk|Skaar]] has this for his father the Hulk and it's why he protects Banner while he waits for the Hulk's return. Granted, Skaar isn't a bad guy (He's mainly angry because he thinks he abandoned him) and Banner is training him for when the Hulk returns.

* [[Doctor Doom]] is perfectly willing to save [[The Fantastic Four]] from certain death at the hands of anyone else, just so that he can kill them himself later. However, he only cares about this if [[Arch Enemy|Reed Richards]] is with them — if only the other three are in danger, he couldn't care less.

* This is Dr. Eggman's attitude toward Sonic in ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Sonic the Hedgehog]]''. In the 2010 Free Comic Book Day issue, one of the badniks created by the original Eggman/Robotnik is about to kill Sonic...and he proceeds to destroy it so it wouldn't "ruin his time-table", much to [[The Starscream|Snively's]] ''immense'' frustration.

 

== Film ==

* Luke and Vader in ''[[Star Wars]]''. Yoda even says "You must confront Vader."

* In ''Circus'', Moose is told by his boss that Leo is responsible for killing his mistress. He tracks down Leo, finds him being threatend by a pair of [[Loan Shark]]s, and beats the tar out of them... before announcing his intention to kill Leo and chasing him down the street. Recovering from the attack, Troy, one of the sharks, comments 'He can't bloody kill him... I'm gonna be the one to kill him!'

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[Redwall]]'''s Marlfoxes are a [[Big Screwed-Up Family]] with no problems killing each other off at the drop of a hat. However, they have a strict "blood for blood" rule if an outsider kills one of them, and they will enthusiastically enforce this rule.

* When the Phoners in Stephen King's ''[[Cell]]'' tell you not to touch one of their enemies, they mean that if you kill one of them, they'll make an example of you

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* The Master from ''[[Doctor Who]]'', despite often trying to kill the Doctor, agrees to try and save his life in "The Five Doctors", because (in his words) "the cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about."

** This is actually a recurring trait with them. During Trial of the Time Lord, the Master actually flat out says he'll help defeat the Valeyard because he wanted to defeat the Doctor himself. Even in the End of Time, the Master, sacrifices himself to save the Doctor from the Time Lords. Add in the epic amounts of ''[[Foe Yay]]'' between these two, and it might just be that all the Master wants is to "keep" the Doctor all for himself, which he actually does in Sound of the Drums/Last of the Time Lords!

* This is Patrick Jane's attitude about Red John in ''[[The Mentalist]]'', but not to the point of helping him out of other scrapes.

* ''[[Spartacus: Blood and Sand]]'': Crixus expressed this sentiment towards Spartacus during and after the Segovax incident.

 

== Video Games ==

** Sephiroth has specifically stated Cloud is the "only one" who can destroy him. In every appearance he has had, he has been fought by [[Kingdom Hearts|Sora]], [[Dissidia Final Fantasy|The Warrior of Light]], [[Final Fantasy II|Firion]], [[Final Fantasy X|Tidus]], [[Final Fantasy IV|Cecil]] (all three offscreen), Tifa, [[Crisis Core|Zack Fair]], and countless others...out of all of them, only Sora and the Warrior beat him in a sword duel, but with the cutscenes that follow after Sephiroth makes it clear that they can't '''truly''' beat him.

* ''[[Fate/stay night]]'' has an odd version, where Gilgamesh seems to believe that he's the only one allowed to defeat ''anybody''. He considers the world and everything in it his property, which means that he is allowed to do anything he wants to anybody he wants, but if someone ''else'' starts killing people ''en masse'' he becomes infuriated and will hunt them down for attacking his 'subjects'.

** Kokonoe is an even worse version. She had to be the one to frag Terumi, no one else. Even if she had to use nukes.

* The 8-Bit version of ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 2]]'', sees Dr. Robotnik catch Sonic the instant before he falls into a lava pit only to drop him into an adjacent, much less deadly self-devised trap. Can be seen at 1:50 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvKZOZv7iDI here.]

* Aveline says this regarding Isabela in [[Dragon Age II]] at the end of Act II, {{spoiler|when the Arishok states that they'll only leave Kirkwall with both Isabela and the Tome she stole from them}}.

* Raz in [[Psychonauts]] tells his camp councilors this about the [[Big Bad]] right before they send him away from the battle, claiming that "the grownups should handle this." He's understandably pissed off later.

 

== Web Comics ==

* In ''[[Antihero for Hire]]'', Wizard to Dechs, Dechs to Hector.

* In ''[[Adventurers!]]'', when [[Big Bad]] Khrima (a [[Harmless Villain]]) saves the heroes from [[Knight of Cerebus|Eternion]] in a [[Big Damn Heroes]] moment, he does it because he doesn't want another villain upstaging him.

* In ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'', Belkar helps rescuing Elan from bandits who've captured him, because "if anyone is going to get XP from him, it'll be me".

* Taken to an extreme in ''[[Spacetrawler]]'': Growp won't allow anyone else to kill Emily. So when his teammates fire at Emily, he shields her from the energy blasts--[[Taking the Bullet|with his own body]].

* In [[Goblins]], Dellyn knows Thaco has some sort of trickery planned when Thaco challenges him to a duel, but still accepts when Thaco points out that [[Batman Gambit|Dellyn would rather kill Thaco personally than let one of his men do it for him]].

 

== Web Original ==

* In a recent fight between [[Psycho Lesbian|Laeil Burbank]] and [[Evil Redheads|Melina Frost]] in ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'', Madison Conner suddenly appears and attacks Laeil to keep her from killing Melina before she can. Laeil also swears to be the only one to kill Melina, as well as kill anyone who tries to beat her to it. {{spoiler|She fails on both accounts as Melina and her killer [[Mutual Kill|kill each other]]. [[Villainous Breakdown|She doesn't take it well.]]}}

* Near the end of ''[[I'm a Marvel And I'm a DC|Marvel/DC: After Hours]]'', the Green Goblin turns on and beats the hell out of Lex Luthor.

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[Kim Possible]]'': Shego's only mildly annoyed (by her standards, anyway) when she gets imprisoned by Drakken's new alien sidekick. But when she realizes that the new girl has a chance of beating Kim, ''that'' pisses her off enough to break free and put a stop to it.

* ''[[Danny Phantom]]''. Skulker is constantly agreeing to work together with Danny and co. in order to save the world, Ghost Zone, or [[The End of the World as We Know It|anything else on a massive enough scale to matter]]. Normally these occurrences are justified by the fact that EVERYONE would die if all the bad guys didn't help, but he tries to make excuses anyway.

* ''[[Transformers]]''. Especially in the Unicron Trilogy, it seems like Megatron always seems to single out Optimus in combat. Also, in the third series of [[The Original Series]], Cyclonus occasionally saved the life of Ultra Magnus because so he could be the one to kill him.

** Likewise, in the series finale, {{spoiler|Iroh refuses to fight Fire Lord Ozai (despite being the only other person powerful enough to beat him), because the Avatar has to do it himself to truly achieve peace. The Avatar carries considerably more clout than two exiles, who would be treated as such.}}

* In a literal sense, Demona and [[Macbeth]] in ''[[Gargoyles]]'', who {{spoiler|due to sorcery are immortal unless one kills the other.}}

** Brutally [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in "[[Mad Love]]" when [[Psycho Supporter|Harley]] captures [[Batman]] with the idea of getting him out of the way, so she and "Mistah J" can be together at last. Batman suckers her into calling the Joker, supposedly so that he will have no [[Never Found the Body|doubt]] that [[Killed Off for Real|Batman is indeed dead]]. What the [[Ax Crazy|Joker]] does to her next [[Battle Discretion Shot|has even the Bat disgusted]]. (She tries to calm Joker down by pointing out how he inspired her scheme, [[Don't Explain the Joke|but that doesn't help]].) Earlier in that same episode, after Batman's been caught in a cloud of knock-out gas:

{{quote|'''Harley''': That's a real gasser, huh, Mistah J?

* Zim of ''[[Invader Zim]]'' is out to destroy the Earth, but won't stop at anything to thwart anyone else who tries to do it <s>more</s> competently.

* In the ''[[Family Guy]]'' episode "And Then There Were Fewer", {{spoiler|Diane Simmons}} attempts to kill Lois. However, Stewie shoots {{spoiler|Diane}} so that ''he'' can be the one to kill Lois.

{{quote|'''Angelica''': "Listen, lady, no one messes with my dumb babies 'cept me!"}}

* A less [[Foe Yay]] and more innocent version of this occurs in the cartoon ''[[Arthur]]''. In one episode, the moose kid, George, is being picked on by bullies. Then Binky, the established bully of the series approaches them and says, "Hey! You can't pick on that kid! He's in my class!" George looks relieved, until Binky adds, "Only ''I'' get to pick on him!"

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]

[[Category:Arch Enemy]]