The Worf Effect: Difference between revisions

[[File:111 8082.png|link=Superman|frame|[[Narrating the Obvious|This guy must be tough; he's beating up Superman!]]]]

 

 

Want a quick way to show how dangerous one of your unknown characters is? Simple, make him win a fight or score points against a character that the audience already knows is tough. This establishes him as willing to fight and marks him as sufficiently dangerous.

Compare [[Badass in Distress]] and [[The World's Expert on Getting Killed]], both of which can overlap. Killing off a [[Red Shirt]] or two is a slightly different method for achieving a similar effect. If the character beats up a whole ''army'''s worth of Worfs, [[Conservation of Ninjutsu]] is probably at work. Contrast [[Fight Dracula]], in which a writer has a pre-established character (as opposed to a new one) demonstrate their awesomeness by fighting Dracula (but not necessarily winning).

 

 

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* [[Ace Pilot]] and Newtype Char Aznable in ''[[Zeta Gundam]]''. Despite having more experience and low level Newtype gifts, as well as piloting a [[Super Prototype]], he underperforms compared to Kamille, Amuro (who's rusty in comparison, yet still proves he's an [[Ace Pilot]]), Emma (after suffering from her own [[Worf Effect]] before getting the Gundam MK II as her primary machine, which [[Took a Level in Badass|takes her to a level of badass]]), Haman Kahn, Paptimus Scirocco, and Reccoa Londe.

* ''[[Naruto]]'': Sasuke Uchiha suffers from this a lot, especially pre [[Face Heel Turn|time skip]]. Kakashi, Rock Lee, Itachi, The Sound Four all beat [[The Rival|Sasuke]] fairly quickly and easily with the latter two actually helping lead to his [[Face Heel Turn]]. He still suffers from it post [[Face Heel Turn|time skip]], even getting hit with it 3 times in a row at the Kage Summit, and the fight with Killerbee...

** One interesting case is {{spoiler|Naruto's defeat of the Third Raikage.}} In this case, his victory was used not to show how powerful he had become, as his best attacks still failed to work, but how much he had progressed ''tactically.''

* In ''[[GoLion|Beast King Golion]]'', every encounter the titular robot has with a robeast who is a physical threat to Golion is an example of this.

** This even happened to his [[Literal Split Personality]] counterpart Moonlight Knight, who was effortlessly beaten down by the villain at the end of the story arc he appeared in for the sake of establishing how dire things had gotten. Needless to say, it wasn't that surprising considering just ''who'' he was split off from. At least Moonlight Knight had a sword.

** Likewise, Sailor Jupiter is almost always killed first in the [[Battle Royale With Cheese]] episodes, or at least the first knocked out because she's the strongest out of the Inner Senshi.

** Averted in the manga. Out of a dozen shown duels or so, Manjoume only loses two of them, one of which is against Judai and the other of which is against Ryo. The other duels we see him fight, he wins. However, he's still essentially undergoing the Worf effect on Ryo, as we haven't seen Ryo duel yet and he handily crushes Manjoume without taking a single point of damage. This is immediately after Manjoume's victory over Judai to boot.

** In ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' season 1, Kaiba gets Worfed by Pegasus.

* ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'' does this with Kuwabara,who lost almost all his battles in the [[Tournament Arc]] to show how terrible the next team was. Averted against the final team though where he beat Elder Toguro

* Despite being the heir-apparent to the Flame King Spitfire, ''[[Air Gear]]'''s Kazu has been summarily manhandled by Aeon Clock, Sora, Nike, Nott-Dagr, and several nameless Gravity Children throughout the series.

* Both [[Mazinger Z]] and [[Great Mazinger]] suffer this within the first two episodes of the ''[[Mazinkaiser]]'' OVA, with both machines falling to Dr. Hell's [[Mechanical Monster]] army.

 

* The [[Silver Surfer]] is one of the most powerful beings alive. He has thrown energy blasts that have staggered [[Galactus]], a man in a crazy hat who ''eats planets''. He has taken hits from said man in crazy hat ''and lived''. He's taken hits that would liquefy Earth and given them right back. This is why whenever a new cosmic menace is introduced, generally the very first thing that happens is someone pitches Silver Surfer in through a window.

* To an end, despite (or perhaps because of) his [[badass]]ery, a good half of the numerous, [[Wolverine Publicity|seemingly omnipresent cameos]] [[Wolverine]] makes in various issues involve him being beaten within an inch of his life and thrown through something. [[Good Thing You Can Heal|Fortunately]], his [[Healing Factor]] fixes him up in a split, allowing him to move to the next. They're being ''serious'' when the [[Badass]] in question ''[[Killed Off for Real|kills]]'' Wolverine, but given how much he's come back from, that will probably never happen.

* [[Batman]] has been used this way at least twice. When [[Green Arrow]] and [[Green Lantern]] came back from the dead, they both established that they were the real deal in short order by socking the ''Goddamn Batman'' square in the jaw.

* Ultimate Thor from ''[[The Ultimates]]'' has over the years often played this role. Several sentences or an issue would be built up to establish how badass he is only for him to get taken out in about two panels. For ever high showing he has there are three or more low ones.

* Years ago, Eric Larsen had the [[Spider-Man]] villain Dr. Octopus deliver the Hulk a severe smackdown during the "Revenge of the Sinister Six" storyarc. In the story, "Doc Ock" was given [[Applied Phlebotinum|extremely powerful adamantium limbs]] which made him far more dangerous. Hulk writer [[Peter David]] accused Larsen of a making a personal attack when he wrote that story and responded with a story written for the sole purpose of mocking Dr. Octopus. Larsen explained that it made sense to use the Hulk for the purpose of this very trope.

 

* Invoked and lampshaded in ''[[Naruto Veangance Revelaitons]]''. In response to accusations that Ronan is a [[God Mode Sue]] and an [[Invincible Hero]], the author had him lose against Madara, claiming that it was proof that Ronan was realistic. This was followed by other (albeit non-consecutive) losses, such as against the head of the Kibusi Corporation, {{spoiler|Sasuke}} and now, the Council, which are gradually becoming more common than the early series.

** The first chapter effectively aets the power rankings when Team 7 loses to Orochimaru, who gets [[Curb Stomp Battle|curb stomped by Ronan]].

** Although Kuno is more of an [[Iron Butt Monkey]] rather than a Worf.

* Similar to the ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' examples below, ''[[Rise of the Galeforces]]'' applies this trope to the [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|Turret Raptors,]] who are quickly defeated by even the youngest members of the main cast. Ditto for the local [[Eldritch Abomination]]s, e.g. Dynacide.

** Well, what would you expect from a [[Chew Toy|Prinny?]]

* Deconstructed in the ''[[Pony POV Series]]'' with {{spoiler|Spitfire. The repeated failures of the Wonderbolts to actually succeed in their heroic attempts begin to take their toll on her confedence and send her into a [[Heroic BSOD]]. Rainbow Dash snaps her out of it by reminding her that, even if the Wonderbolts can't do the ''actual'' heroics, they are still heroes because they ''inspire'' ponies who ''can''.}}

* Each of the [[Big Bad]]s in the ''[[Azula Trilogy]]'' prove themselves to be threats by being able to match or defeat one of the heroes—Azun defeats Zuko in ''Heart'', Wei Ming goes toe-to-toe with Azula in ''Path'', and Jian Chin defeats Aang in ''Soul'' (though the latter two were [[Demonic Possession|possessed]] by [[The Man Behind the Man|true]] [[Big Bad]] {{spoiler|Zhan Zheng}} at the time, so this trope more works for him than them).

* In ''[[Uninvited Guests]]'', this is ''[[Invoked Trope|invoked]]'' by Hitsugaya in order to beat Aizen's [[Plot Armor]]. Enter "[[Filler Villain|the Dark Lord Wolfington]]," who is [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|definitely not Komamura in a mask.]]

 

== Film ==

* ''[[Transformers (film)|Transformers]]'' does this to Ironhide. Spec wise he's the strongest Autobot after Optimus. And he boasts about his powerful arm cannons. But outside of tie in material in the actual films his performances are less than stellar. In the first film he waves his cannons around the entire time but when he finally gets to fire them at Brawl he misses and winds up doing no damage to him at all while the medic Ratchet slices off his arm and knocks him over. Brawl is killed by Bumblebee while Hide opts to run around after Sam until Starscream shows up and blasts him, taking him out of the fight for the rest of the film. In the 2nd film he again doesn't really cause any actual damage with his trademark cannons, simply attempting to lead a scout team (which gets all wiped out but him) and running from an explosion. Which he doesn't manage, again getting knocked over and down for the count for the rest of the film. Finally in the last film he manages to show off his apparent Badassery by stepping in and singlehandedly killing two of the Dreads that Bumblebee and Sam had spent the last 5 minutes running in fear from. {{spoiler|Then Sentinel Prime kills him.}} And the two Dreads? He killed with a sidearm and his fists, not his cannons (which he doesn't even bother to use) giving the weapon specialist a kill count of 0 with his actual weapons.

* In ''[[Enter the Dragon]]'', we get introduced to Williams' ability to kick butt. He then faces the [[Big Bad]], Mr. Han. It is the first time we actually see Han in action so naturally, this trope in invoked.

 

== Literature ==

* There are many examples in Steve Alten's ''[[Meg]]'' series where a [[Megalodon]] defeats equally large and dangerous predators (to the point of bordering on [[Villain Sue]]), but only the opening scene of the first novel qualifies (wherein Meg eats a [[Tyrannosaurus Rex]]) because the marine reptiles are too obscure to the general public to be this trope.

* Possibly lampshaded in ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' novel, ''Daemon World''. When a group of Word Bearer Chaos Marines board his ship, {{spoiler|Arguelon Veq}}'s first target is Vrox, an Obliterator (which, for the uninitiated, is a mutated monstrosity twice the size of regular Chaos Space Marines and can spawn weapons and armor from his body). After he kills Vrox with relative ease, he even comments that he was the least threatening of the Chaos Marines on board.

* In ''[[Animorphs]]'', [[Sixth Ranger Traitor|David]] subjects [[Standardized Leader|team leader]] Jake to this during their duel. Up until this point, Jake's tiger has been one of the most lethally efficient morphs the team has. Despite having a year of experience on the new Animorph, Jake still loses. Handily.

* ''[[Septimus Heap]]'': Nicko Heap in ''Physik'' is mentioned to be strong enough to tackle virtually anybody, but when he tries to attack Queen Etheldredda, she just swats him out of the way.

* Anyone Roran is sent to replace in ''[[Inheritance Cycle]]''. Especially with {{spoiler|Queen Islanzadi near the end of the final book.}}

 

* On the video commentary for the episode "Errand of Mercy" on the ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' Season 1 Blu-Ray, the [[Worf Effect]] is very clearly referred to by VFX designer David Rossi. He notes that the production staff consciously used Worf as the "measuring stick" by which the strength and [[Badass]]-ery of villains was determined.

** In "Conspiracy", an adversary casually tosses around Riker, LaForge ''and'' Worf before Dr. Crusher calmly walks in and phasers his ass. Multiple shots at high setting were required, though, one lasting as long as three to four seconds.

** In one episode of ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space Nine]]'', Worf himself deliberately utilizes this trope by letting Martok defeat him in a duel so as to restore the crew's confidence in Martok. This scene echos the TNG episode ''A Matter of Honor'', in which Commander Riker, on detached duty to the Klingon warship ''Pagh'', intentionally provokes the ''Pagh's'' captain into backhanding him so the man could take back his command [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|with honor]]. The episode also proves that a [[Klingon Promotion]] isn't always fatal.

** Interestingly, Worf's predecessor as head of security, Tasha Yar, [[Dropped a Bridge on Him|was killed by a monster purely as a demonstration of power]]. Seems Worf inherited it. She had it far worse that Worf ever did. He, at least, sometimes won fights. If she'd stuck around longer, this trope would have been called the Yar Effect.

** Worf getting his butt kicked on the phaser range by ''Guinan.'' Though at least he had a couple good excuses—he was distracted by his personal problems, number one, and number two--

{{quote|'''Guinan:''' Don't feel bad. I was doing this long before ''you'' were born.

And he's never claimed or been shown to be that good a shot. Give him a Bat'leth, however, and diced El-Aurian would have been on the menu that night. }}

* In ''[[Power Rangers Mystic Force]]'', Daggeron was unstoppable in his first two or three appearances, but after that, he suffered The Worf Effect often. ''Mystic Force'' '''did''' have tougher monsters than other seasons, and anyone who could beat on Daggeron could ''maul'' the main five, but he was always the first one in and the first one down.

** This "[[Sixth Ranger]] Syndrome" can be seen in almost every season of ''[[Power Rangers]]''—the new, super powerful extra Ranger debuts, defeats the enemy in a few hits, and two episodes later is jobbing out to anything thrown his way.

** This is also subverted as well. Most obviously in ''[[Power Rangers SPD]]'' with the Shadow Ranger. He rarely fights (as he doesn't want the Rangers to rely on him) and when he does, he normally completely mops the floor with his opponents.

** Tommy also suffers this to the White Ranger in ''[[Power Rangers Dino Thunder]].'' Despite having consistently beaten everything that came at him, including a [[Once Per Episode]] battle with one of the season's [[The Dragon|Dragons]], The White Ranger takes him out without breaking a sweat. Trent would go on to suffer this himself, being himself a [[Sixth Ranger]]. As the Green Ranger, Tommy got this a lot, losing his powers ''twice'', turning evil a second time, and constantly being under spells that [[What the Hell, Hero?|that made it impossible for him and Jason to work together]].

* ''[[Angel]]'' featured this to some extent with Illyria. After a few episodes of her beating the everloving snot out of everyone and being nigh indestructible (although she does get toned down a bit right before this incident), [[Implacable Man|Marcus Hamilton]] shows up and beats her to a bloody pulp, with as little effort as Neo put into defeating Smith at the end of ''[[The Matrix]]''.

** Marginally [[Justified Trope]], in that Hamilton was sent in ''after'' Illyria had been depowered; in fact, he actually helps ''arrange'' for her depowering, and deliberately doesn't go anywhere near her until she is.

*** That was mostly because she was sleep deprived though, {{spoiler|once she finally slept (like her premonition told her to do) she beat it rather easily. }}

** Spike is semi-vulnerable to this. His fights tend to start with him being beaten almost unconscious by whatever man/woman/fluffy rabbit he's fighting, then proceeding to destroy his opponent in the span of a few seconds.

** A bit of [[Fridge Brilliance]] here. D'Argo had been chained to a wall for many years at the start and would not be nearly as strong or able as when he was originally a warrior. However, after a year and a half of being on the run and facing monsters on a weekly basis, it's not surprising he got back in shape.

* ''[[Kamen Rider Decade]]'' gets this accusation in spades; check its individual page for details. In short, despite the fact that Decade is canonically one of the strongest Kamen Riders, every single time he defeats a character returning from an older series, somebody's going to claim that his opponent was [[Nerf]] ed to make Decade look better. Also, the alternate version of [[Kamen Rider Kuuga]] who appears in this series rarely transforms and when he does, he usually gets smacked around, which has become another point of contention between those who like the show and those who don't.

* Several episodes of the BBC's [[Walking with Dinosaurs|Walking With...]] series follow the same pattern. As an opening a bad-ass dinosaur/scorpion/shark is shown hunting down some poor critter only for the real star of the episode to suddenly appear and bite them in half.

 

* Tigers in East Asian fables tend to get sacrificed to show the badassery of various characters.

** Oni are almost always depicted as wearing a tiger skin on some part of their body, or at least tiger-teeth jewelry.

 

== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==

* [[The Undertaker]] is often the victim of this (as opposed to more conventional jobbing), which causes most viewers who have been watching ''[[WWE Smackdown]]'' for more than a few months to conclude that [[Michael Cole]] has a very short memory.

** [[The Undertaker]] is so good in this role, he doesn't even have to get beat to prove the new guy is credible. From Yokozuna to [[Stone Cold Steve Austin]] to [[Jeff Hardy]], the easy way to establish a WWE wrestler as a legit main-eventer has been to have him stare into the Dead Man's eyes and refuse to flinch. (And when [[Mick Foley|Mankind]] proved himself Taker's equal in psychological warfare, it made him an instant star.)

** Delivered an almighty Glam Slam to the Women's Champion [[Lay Cool|Michelle McCool]] and became the first person to pin her cleanly in over five months. To this day Michelle still hasn't beaten Beth cleanly.

* It's a pretty standard formula for starting up a feud over the title. The champion is in a tag team match (sometimes it's a singles match) and the wrestler they want to push will get a surprise win with the champion taking the pin. Usually another tag match will follow with the same thing happening again. Next there will be some kind of #1 contender's match and the wrestler will get his/her official title shot (sometimes they don't even use a #1 contender's match if the wrestler beats the champion in a non-title singles match). However it can go either way whether or not the wrestler actually wins the title.

 

== Sports ==

* In combat sports such as boxing and [[Mixed Martial Arts]], contenders on the rise are often matched up with "gatekeepers," who are reasonably tough veterans of the sport who will not be challenging for the title any time soon. Defeating a gatekeeper gives fighters experience and raises their stock in the public's eye.

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

** Contrast with the film ''[[Unforgiven]]'' (to which the trope doesn't apply anyways because it is a one-time encounter) where the writer speculates that Munny took out his opponents in the final shoot out in order of their dangerousness. Munny says no, he's just been lucky that way.

* This is actively subverted in White Wolf's ''[[Werewolf: The Forsaken]]''. The Rahu Auspice are the designated tough guy in any pack. What inborn ability do they gain for being Rahu? The ability to tell at a glance whether or not they could take a given opponent in a fight.

* ''[[Exalted]]'': the Bull of the North is recommended for this in Compass: North, while Return of the Scarlet Empress sets up {{spoiler|as much of the Fivescore Fellowship as the Storyteller wishes to take out}}, and especially Chejop Kejak.

* Most premade tabletop RPG settings feature powerful existing characters. As saving and one-uping the player characters in their own story is very unpopular, most pre-written modules and GMs that actually use them relegate them to [[Mr. Exposition]] or this.

 

* Even as the archrival, Eggman is like this in the newer [[Sonic the Hedgehog]] games. If he's set up to be the [[Big Bad]], just imagine how tough that [[Giant Space Flea From Nowhere|guy]] who [[Bait and Switch Boss|destroyed his Death Egg in one shot]] is going to be!

** Sonic himself suffered from this in ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 2006]]''. All of his encounters with Silver end with him being dispatched rather easily. In addition, {{spoiler|Mephiles manages to kill him without much effort}}.

* ''[[Mortal Kombat 9]]'' does this a lot:

** In Smoke's chapter of Story Mode, he faces off against Kitana and Sektor and triumphs without much difficulty. When they meet again (Kitana and Nightwolf's chapters, respectively), {{spoiler|Kitana beats him alongside Cage}}, and {{spoiler|Sektor treats Smoke like a ragdoll, with Smoke being unable to successfully land a blow before Sektor gets him into a chokehold and Nightwolf has to intervene}}.

* In one of the prequel books of ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'', the Order is about to face a guard monster, only to have it hit Roy with a roll of 2. Upon realizing that it can nail the party member with the probable highest Armor Class with such a low roll, they flee.

** Explicitly lampshaded in [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0736.html this strip].

** Sara's jobbing seems restricted to magic-using enemies. For example, she gets caught by an unexpected bind spell, but once Meji frees her she takes down three elves in a handful of seconds.

* In ''[[Homestuck]]'', [[Noble Bigot|Equius]], the strongest of the trolls, (he ''[[Testosterone Poisoning|punched the head off an ogre with his bare hands!]]'') is {{spoiler|easily strangled to death by [[Monster Clown|Gamzee]] as his first victim}}. This is arguably both a [[Played Straight|straight play]] and a subversion, since [[Word of God]] says {{spoiler|he could have easily broken the bowstring with his STRONG neck, but didn't because [[Fantastic Racism|Gamzee is a highblood]] and therefore had the right to kill him}}, [[Combat Sadomasochist|at least in Equius' mind]].

* Generally, the first action of a villain during the Yearly ''[[Bob and George]]'' Villain Kills Everyone storyline is to take out Protoman, who could be loosely described as a sort of robot [[Batman]].

* Elliot from ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' suffers from this, even though the series isn't focused on combat. He built a reputation as a [[Bully Hunter]] and befriended two of the main characters through saving them from bullies and defeated the first antagonist of the strip. He then lost to {{spoiler|Grace's brother Hedge}}, and embarrassingly so having been knocked out after one blow.<ref>and the exhaustion from one involuntary transformation that may have been precipitated by that blow</ref>

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* In the second season of ''[[Legion of Extraordinary Dancers]]'', they introduce Organization X, a group of Evil Counterparts to the heroes set up as the main antagonists. When episode 16 rolls around, they haven't actually gotten a chance to show off their skills in a fight just yet (Except for Fangz, who isn't actually in the episode). Episode 16 has them facing off against The Umbras, a group of identically dressed Mooks working for the Dark Doctor who are only introduced a minute or two before OX shows up, just enough to show that they're actually pretty good. It's a perfect set-up for this trope, {{spoiler|[[Subverted Trope|but The Umbras end up wiping the floor with them]]}}.

* In the ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYxu_MQSTTY David Blaine Street Magic]'' parody videos, David Blaine starts out as a [[Reality Warper]] who keeps playing tricks on two L.A. idiots. Then, in the fourth video, [[Creator's Pet|Zaoza]] appears.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* Huey Freeman from ''[[The Boondocks]]'' subtly takes on this role. Though his fight sequences are somewhat lengthy and he shows much martial knowledge, anytime he has fought anyone with some sort of training, he has ended up on his back and bleeding.

* In ''[[Superman: The Animated Series]]'', Mercy Graves was usually presented as the [[Badass Normal]] [[The Dragon|dragon]] for [[Lex Luthor]]. She spent [[The Movie|"World's Finest"]] getting knocked around, mostly by [[Designated Girl Fight|Harley Quinn]], and ended up [[Bound and Gagged]] and strapped to one of Lex's robot as a [[Human Shield]] against [[The Fettered|Superman]]. She gets the last laugh, though; Harley goes to the slammer, and Mercy just has to heal.

** Twilight actually gets worfed pretty often on the show, due to a borderline [[Story-Breaker Power]]. In ''The Stare Master'' she encounters a creature that presumably [[Evil Eye|took her out]] [[Taken for Granite|too quickly]] for her to have time to use magic on it. In ''The Return of Harmony'' her supposedly "failsafe" spell fails, probably because she attempted to fix the changes provoked by a [[Mad God]]. She also has many, many occasions on which she conveniently forgets to use spells we already know she has (that teleport of hers would have been convenient against the hydra!) or uses spells that go catastrophically awry, like in ''Swarm Of The Century''.

** The Wonderbolts swoop in to save the day both in "Sonic Rainboom" and in "Secret of My Excess". Neither attempt goes well.

* In the ''[[Animaniacs]]'' segment "The GoodFeathers" Pesto was the toughest fighter; they knew that their opponent was a threat if he took down Pesto which happened often.

* Done in ''[[Kim Possible]]'' where [[Alien Invader]] Warmonga easily took on both Shego and Kim, the latter of which was wearing her [[Story-Breaker Power]] battlesuit. Only a miracle allowed them to survive. Then in the [[Grand Finale]], Warmonga returned with the more powerful Warhak who was able to knock both females out with a single punch. It was then reversed to show just how awesome Ron was by taking both aliens down with his Mystical Monkey Power.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Characters As Device]]

[[Category:Characterization Tropes]]

[[Category:Truth in Television]]

[[Category:Esoteric Trope Names]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Worf Effect, The}}