The Worf Effect: Difference between revisions

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).

 

 

{{noreallife|we'd be here all day. There's [[Always Someone Better]].}}

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

** 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.

* [[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.

 

== Fan Works ==

* 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.

{{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.

* 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.)

** 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.

** A variation occurs, because of the [[Metagame]]: If a card turns out to be a [[Game Breaker]], there will be instant answers to it next set, though (as per the rules) there are always answers to everything. Storyline-wise, Lin Sivvi was a [[Game Breaker]] in the Masques block; she died at the very beginning of the Invasion block.

* ''[[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.

* 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]].

* 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.

* In ''[[WITCH]]''{{'}}s second season, if you weren't the Guardians, the Regents or Caleb, you were going to get Worfed. Elyon, Kadma and the Oracle end up getting captured by Nerissa due to her wonderful skills in [[Xanatos Gambit]]-ing.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Characters As Device]]

[[Category:Characterization Tropes]]

[[Category:Truth in Television]]

[[Category:Esoteric Trope Names]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Worf Effect, The}}