The World's Expert on Getting Killed: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

The above may be unfortunate, but this is just embarrassing: Not only will our Expert get killed by the [[Big Bad]], but at no time in the confrontation will our Expert even pose a major challenge to the Big Bad. The Expert, (usually late in the game having imparted all their useful advice and wisdom about the threat), will be dispatched neatly, cleanly and almost effortlessly by the villain/monster/demon, making the audience wonder how in the hell this guy even lived long enough to ever become an expert on this particular threat at all.

{{examples}}

== Anime ==

* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', Lieutenant Colonel Hughes upon working out the secret plan of the Big Bad and running out to inform his superior Col. Mustang, is attacked by two main enemies who work for the Big Bad. He fights back, but in vain and is killed without relaying any of the info. This then adds to the plight of the hero's and makes it personal.

* ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'': Mami Tomoe is a veteran Magical Girl who introduces Madoka and Sayaka to the risks and rewards involved so they can decide if they want to enlist. She gets eaten by episode three's [[Monster of the Week]].

** The protagonist who ''truly'' knows the most about the dangers Magical Girls face, Homura, is actually a subversion. She's the only character who not only survives the series, but never dies in any of the shown timelines {{spoiler|since she's the reason these, and the other, timelines even exist}}.

 

 

* Robert Muldoon from ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' "knows more about Raptors than anyone" ... but is pretty quickly and easily dispatched by the raptors once they're loose when they use their standard attack pattern. One wonders if the fact he was [[Acceptable Targets|a hunter]] in a Hollywood movie might have something to do with it. In the book, it's Hammond instead, and Muldoon survives the experience after shooting the T-Rex with a rocket launcher, blowing at least one raptor in half with a shotgun and still continuing to be an untouchable [[Badass]] even after he finally gets so drunk he can barely stand.

** Muldoon does have one thing in his defense: He's a hunter, not a paleontologist. He's studied the Hammond-mutated Raptors and how they reacted in captivity, but he hasn't studied their behavior in the wild.

** Dr. Henry Wu, who should theoretically know as much as Muldoon about the creatures he helped to create, also gets it in the book. To be fair, he was holding the [[Idiot Ball]] at the time.

** Ian Malcolm being the only person who '''knows''' from the start that the Park is unsafe, still goes there anyway. Just so he can be the [[Only Sane Man]] and [[Deadpan Snarker]]. Fittingly, he is killed in the book. But he survives the film and it is [[Ret Conned]] in the book sequel that [[Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated]].

** Well, he did call Chigurh unstoppable. The World's Expert on an [[Implacable Man]] isn't exactly immune to bullets.

*** The un-initiated Llewelen is, however much more problematic for Chigurh.

* Charles Remington in ''[[The Ghost and the Darkness]]'' is the world's authority on man-eating lions, and how to make them dead. One of the lions takes him in his sleep, it seems.

** Repeated with the [[Badass]] hunter in ''Prey''.

** This happens in the first film as well with Quinn.

*** To some extent it's really his pride that does him in. He's been hunting and killing sharks for years, and can't quite accept that this particular one might be more than he can handle.

* The entomologist who knows all about the killer spiders of the movie ''[[Arachnophobia]]'' goes down like a [[Red Shirt]]. Perhaps a little more acceptable than most examples because he's a scientist, not a hunter, but he still wasn't very careful despite knowing how dangerous the spiders were.

* ''[[Predator]] 2''. Peter Keyes, the world's leading expert on the title creature, goes up against it. He manages to survive the first round but is killed later, leaving the Hero to finally dispatch it.

* ''[[Cube]]'' has Rennes, AKA "The Wren" an expert on escaping prisons who dies in the first rooms, by having ''his face burned off with acid''.

* ''[[The Rage: Carrie 2]]'' combines this with [[Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome]], killing off a [[Zen Survivor]] who tried to prevent the slaughter this time around.

* Happens towards the end in ''[[Spy Kids|Spy Kids 3D]]'' where a teen comes in who calls himself [[The Chosen One|"The Guy"]]. He enters the last level before the others do. You'd think a video game expert would last long, but one hit and all 100 hit points he had were ''gone''.

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[Harry Potter]]'': Book 6; Dumbledore, an expert in magic and Voldemort, gets himself cursed by making a foolish move while retrieving Voldemort's ring horcrux. Justified by the fact that, by his own admission, his desperation to find out who killed his sister (his enemy or [[Kick the Wrong Dog|his own misfired spell]]) clouded his judgement.

*** ''Avada Kedavra'' is unblockable, so he could only have survived if he dodged it. Considering Mundungus Fletcher disapparated, distracting him and probably throwing his broom off-balance, it's not likely he was able to.

** Gilderoy Lockhart is a parody of this trope. He's amazing. A genius. He's defeated evil monster after evil monster- and his written works on how he did it has made him famous. Oddly enough, he seems rather hesitant to do anything in real life. {{spoiler|Turns out that he's been stealing the defeats of evil monsters off other people, and erasing their memories.}}

== [[Video Games]] ==

* In ''[[F.E.A.R.|Project Origin]]'', Snake Fist/Terry Halford is your best chance of bringing down Alma. Which results in [[Surprisingly-Sudden Death|an Assassin ripping his head off]] seconds after you meet him.

** Spoiler: {{spoiler|Azar Javed himself kills Maarloeve, and begins impersonating him using magic, which Geralt may or may not discover early on, depending on the player's actions.}}

* In ''[[Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood|Assassin's Creed Brotherhood]]'', one Borgia Captain claims, in [[Enemy Chatter]] you can eavesdrop on, to know how Assassins operate and thus how to deal with them, but other than being on horseback (and thus being able to flee faster), he's no harder to kill for all his bluster than any other Borgia Captains. As a result, players have been known to time their kills of him to maximize the dramatic irony. For example...

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Death Tropes]]

[[Category:Characters As Device]]

[[Category:Hero Tropes]]

[[Category:The World's Expert on Getting Killed]]