Weaksauce Weakness: Difference between revisions
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: The multitude of fiction involving vampires, though, has led to a [[Our Vampires Are Different|multitude of differing weaknesses]]—including varying degrees of effectiveness. In some settings, vampires are weak to silver, and other religious symbols affect them as much as Christian ones. Then there's the older, more obscure, and even more restrictive weaknesses such as inability to cross running water, or obsessive-compulsive disorder causing the need to count piles of beans or other small objects, inability to stand constant bell ringing, and even the need to be invited to enter houses.
: On the inverse, many of the works that tend toward "non-standard" portrayals of vampires also go at length to [[Your Vampires Suck|mock]] the traditional weaknesses.
* [[The Fair Folk]] are terrific—as in terror-inducing—beings of legend and myth ... and yet, they can be beaten by a stick of iron, salt, a horseshoe, a length of rowan wood, clothes worn inside-out, or a ''stick of bread''.
: A popular explanation for the weakness comes from Victorian Era archaeologists, who held that this is all just symbolism for the bronze and stone-working cultures being conquered by iron-working ones. More recent academics (like Dr. Diane Purkiss) have shown there's no archaeological or historical evidence for this.
:* Some stories say that if you accept a gift from them, you should ''never'' respond by saying "thank you", it will make you beholden to them. Give them one in return of greater value and they must leave you unharmed.
:* This is an especially big problem for the Nuckelavee of Orcadian folklore. Widely considered the most malevolent elf in all of Scotland, the Nuckelavee is an eldritch horror that resembles a man on horseback, if the man was fused to the horse and both had all their skin flayed off. It rides through the countryside destroying crops, killing travelers, causing floods and plagues and generally being a harbinger for all things bad. How do you defeat this monstrosity? Fresh water, and burning seaweed. The Nucklavee fears freshwater, so much so that it cannot cross a stream, and hides in its oceanic lair during the winter storms. Likewise, it finds the smell of burning seaweed intolerably offensive. However, don't provoke the Nucklavee, especially with taunting or burning seaweed, as whenever the Nucklavee is offended, it tries to literally kill all of the horses in the Orkneys with a hideous disease called "Mortasheen."
* Werewolves have their share of weaknesses, too; earlier legends provide ones such as having an iron bar thrown over their head, drawing three drops of blood, or having their name announced one to three times.
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** It should also be noted that Homer's depiction of Achilles does not appear to include the tradition of limited invulnerability. When Achilles takes the field in the later books of The Iliad, a spear (thrown by a mid-level mook) grazes his shoulder and draws blood.
* In folk tradition, salt is often used to repel evil. It was said a circle of salt could protect one from witches, that salt over your doorstep would ward off ghosts and evil spirit. Salt was often seen as a symbol of purity, especially in its uses: Salt is a conservation agent after all, and salt-cured meats don't spoil. Salt as a purifier appears in Shinto (Where it is used as a ritual purifier and small mounds of salt can be used to repel evil spirits) and Christianity (where it is used before mass and to consecrate a church).
* Robots or other sentient machines (especially [[Mecha Mook]]s) often blow their fuses when exposed to water, seeing as there is [[No Waterproofing in the Future]].
== Anime and Manga ==
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** Blackbeard has one of the most powerful abilities in universe. He can wipe out entire towns in seconds, shoot the debris out like cannon, and negate Devil Fruit powers. But he can't dodge ''anything.'' While most Logia-fruit users can have attacks pass right through them, Blackbeard is quite the opposite, making any physical attack super-effective.
** Speaking of Blackbeard, San Juan Wolf, a member of his crew, is one Devil Fruit user who can easily handle water; as one of the largest giants alive, he can wade through the ocean without it ever coming to neck-length.
** Seastone is the Devil Fruit version of kryptonite; it is a man-made material that is supposedly made by a process that makes sea water so dense that it becomes solid and as hard and durable as diamond. However it is made, physical contacy with a Devil Fruit user both weakens said user and nullifies his powers. The Marines have an abundance of this material, using it to craft handcuffs, weapons (like Smoker's jutte) and jail cells.
* The specialists, the Paper Sisters in ''[[Read or Die|Read Or Dream]]'' can telekinetically manipulate paper... unless it's ''wet''. This was not a weakness for Yomiko Readman, who ''is'' shown on camera manipulating paper while underwater. This is actually [[Justified Trope|explained in-universe]]. The Paper Sisters' powers are essentially imperfect clones of Yomiko's, artificially created by Dokusensha; which is why they are weaker and more specialized/limited. Water naturally disrupts the structural integrity of paper, and their inferior powers are not sufficient to maintain it the way Yomiko can.
* ''[[Super Dimension Fortress Macross]]'' has an alien attack force made up of gigantic [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens]] who are a [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|proud warrior race]] do a mass [[Mook Face Turn]] because of... singing. And souvenirs. In fairness, it does make sense in the story (at least as much as ''[[War of the Worlds]]''{{'}} Martians being vulnerable to Earth's diseases) and is perhaps one of the best logical conclusions to a typical alien's [[Planet of Hats]] treatment. The aliens have no culture to speak of other than fighting, so when exposed to humans and their culture in the form of songs and interacting with the other gender after sending a team of spies to the SDF-1, typical Zentradi start feeling emotions, questioning their purpose, and [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|becoming similar to humans.]] Because of this, their entire fleet gets deemed "contaminated" by the unexposed Zentradi and programmed for destruction. In the face of this [[Enemy Civil War]], they wisely choose to ally with the humans. Still, it doesn't quite wash away the faint air of ridiculousness when Minmay's singing becomes an ''offensive weapon'' to unbalance the unexposed Zentradi in their attack.
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* From the manga ''[[Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple]]'', we have Akisame Koetsuji, the Jujutsu Philosopher. Master martial artist, a doctor so skilled he can raise the recently dead, and [[The Ace|master of a bazillion and six other fields]]. He's one of Kenichi's six super-powerful masters... and green peppers make him so ill that he can be held at bay simply by hanging one outside his door.
* [[Kinnikuman]] is weakened by milk. Though after he goes insane during his match against Curry Cook and ''drinks'' the stuff, it becomes apparent that he just thinks it's disgusting.
* The Gundam Aerial of ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury]]'' primarily uses [[Frickin' Laser Beams|beam weaponry]], which in this continuity is greatly weakened by water, meaning rain puts it at a heavy disadvantage. This weakness is ironic, since the Aerial is (officially) from Mercury, which is known as "Water Planet" (水星) in Japanese.
== Comic Books ==
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** More recently, [[Frank Miller]] parodied the ''hell'' out of this in ''[[All-Star Batman and Robin The Boy Wonder]]''. Before confronting Green Lantern, Batman and Robin paint an entire house, and everything in it, yellow. Then they put on yellow costumes. Then they paint their exposed faces yellow. When GL comes over, Batman goes so far as to offer him a nice refreshing glass of lemonade, while Robin eats some lemon ice cream. Hal was not amused. Readers were.
** The original Green Lantern was almost as bad—his weakness was wood. Since so few people knew it as later Green Lanterns became famous, however, he in many cases seemed ''more'' powerful than the new Green Lanterns because, for example, the Sinestro Corps yellow power rings couldn't even make him flinch.
*** This was parodied in the ''[[Justice League]]'' [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] [[Affectionate Parody]] episode "Legends", with his [[Captain Ersatz|stand-in version]] "Green Guardsman", who had a weakness to aluminum <ref>Given he's from the Golden Age, this is not as bad ''as'' it sounds: Aluminium, which is common but rarely found pure and needing mass electricity to be refined economically, was expensive prior to modern nuclear/hydroelectric power and several times more expensive than gold before the 1850s.</ref>. Either way, you've got a superhero who could appear on the news after having been beaten to death with a baseball bat—and considering that one of his foes was the Sportsmaster, who ''did'' wield a baseball bat... it's pretty darned weaksauce.
*** It didn't hurt that wood, while very common when Alan Scott first hit the scene, had become rarer in civilization by the time [[The Silver Age of Comic Books]] hit. Villains in [[The DCU]] tend to decorate in metal, plastic, and [[Zeerust]] by then, which means even less to block that strange ring with.
*** This actually becomes a problem for him in the Elseworlds story ''[[Kingdom Come]]''. Like most of the other original heroes, [[Green Lantern]] Alan Scott's powers have progressed to a ludicrous level - he keeps watch over the Earth in a massive emerald [[Space Station]], constructed himself a suit of impressive armor, and carries around a sword made out of pure energy - all from his power ring. None of it helps very much against [[Green Arrow]] in the final battle, since this Oliver Queen's arrows are made out of wood.
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* [[Justice League]] villain Queen of Fables has strange powers and a stranger weakness. To use her powers offensively, she must base them around a well-known work of fiction (not necessarily fairy tales, but those are her preference) and once she is set on one, she is invincible and invulnerable, ''unless'' her intended victims take advantage of whatever flaw in the strategy the villain of the original story had. If they do, the Queen becomes powerless. For example, she could cast herself as the witch from [[Hansel and Gretel]], forcing [[Superman]] and [[Wonder Woman]] to assume the role of the two protagonists. Trying to fight her the usual way would get the two heroes nowhere, as they'd be as helpless as the two children were, but if they caught on and decided to try shoving her into her oven, the Queen would be beaten. Unfortunately for the Queen of Fables, the stories she uses are just too well known, so under this sort of condition, she is never as much a threat as her powers suggest.
* [[Disney Ducks Comic Universe|In Disney comics]], Scrooge McDuck's nemesis Magica De Spell has an aversion to garlic, much like vampires do; this is not the case in second version of ''[[DuckTales (2017)|DuckTales]]'', where she was seen eating it without any discomfort.
* The Shaper of Worlds (a character most associated with the [[Silver Surfer]]) is as his name applies, a powerful [[Reality Warper]] who can reshape entire planets, able to turn a dead, lifeless world into an idyllic paradise. Only problem is, he has no imagination, and must rely on that of mortals (usually his apprentice, the former earthling Glorian) to do so properly.
== [[Fan Works]] ==
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* The aliens in ''[[The War of the Worlds (novel)|The War of the Worlds]]'' were killed by {{spoiler|a common disease. The aliens were so advanced and germophobic that they wiped out all microbial life on their native planet. Which of course meant they had nothing to develop immunities to when they invaded Earth}}.
* The Martians, in [[Ray Bradbury]]'s ''[[The Martian Chronicles]]'', are killed ''en masse'' rather early in the book by a human-induced plague of chicken pox. It's a [[Shout-Out|knowing reference]] to both American history and ''[[The War of the Worlds (novel)|The War of the Worlds]]''.
* The Boggart in ''[[
** Alternatively, the Boggart can't handle trying to frighten more than one person at once, as attempts to materialize into more than one person's fear results in things such as the "half a slug" incident. This is why Lupin advised his students not to face a Boggart alone (combined with the above reason).
** Voldemort's inability to understand Love, and [[The Power of Love]], proves to be his ultimate undoing. However, this is less of a Weaksauce Weakness than a [[Fatal Flaw]]. Harry does not beat Voldemort because of some mystical aspect of love, but because having reliable friends and allies ultimately gives him an advantage over Voldemort, who underestimates the capacity of others to behave selflessly because he would never even consider doing so himself.
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* Eddings' ''[[The Redemption of Althalus]]'' featured both one protagonistic and one antagonistic [[Five-Man Band]], both with similar power arrays. The villains included the evil mind-leech Koman, with telepathy and mind-warping abilities... who was defeated when Althalus thought about random numbers. ''Fractions'' of numbers, even.
* ''[[Discworld]]'' examples:
** The Auditors in ''[[
*** Non-incarnated Auditors can be killed by getting them to say "I", "me", or otherwise admit individuality. Since it's widely known that (a) only living things have individuality, (b) all living things die after some amount of time and (c) any living thing's lifespan is practically no time at all compared to the universe's, any Auditor who admits individuality instantly dies. By the perspective of the rest of them, this isn't much of a loss, since there are more Auditors than there is ''anything else in the universe'' and, by definition, any given one of them is supposed to lack any defining characteristics.
** Much of the plot of [[Discworld]] novel ''[[
*** Discworld vampires play this trope in a weird, [[All Myths Are True]] way. ''All'' weaknesses you might have ever heard of apply to ''some'' vampire, but you may have to do trial and error to find out which ones apply to the particular one who's trying to eat you right now. There are also a few with psychological problems that compel them to do things that directly address their particular weakness (such as the vampire flash photographer who works for The Truth, who has a weakness to bright light, and the one who worked at such jobs as pencil maker, garlic stacker, and whole-sale holy water clerk).
** Discworld bogeymen are incredibly strong, reasonably nasty, and some of them can teleport to some extent. Their
* In ''[[Artemis Fowl]]'', fairy magic can be completely stopped by animal fat. That's right, magic that can make you invisible, hypnotize people, heal nearly anything, and in some cases ''travel through time'' can be stopped by ''lard''. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry0TyIJXgoU Praise the Lard!]
** Also not forgetting some of the laws that (most) fairies have to adhere to thanks to some very old, powerful magic—the most commonly seen are the Ritual for restoring magic (has to be done with an acorn, at the full moon, under an oak next to a bend in the river... or at least to start with. By the second book that's already been thrown out as mere myth.), the 'fairies cannot enter human houses without permission' rule, and by extension, the 'fairies cannot disobey a direct command given by a human eye to eye' rule. Of course, {{spoiler|These are handwaved away by No1 in the 6th book.}}
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** Trolls, while nocturnal, are not harmed by sunlight (except Ysgardian trolls, a different species entirely) and have a powerful regeneration ability, but are very susceptible to fire and acid, which are also very afraid of. They cannot regenerate injuries caused by either.
** Medusas can be petrified by their own reflection, but only in an actual mirror - other reflective surfaces like clear water or polished stone will not work. This seems to be a result of the curse that affected a society of vain, narcissistic and beautiful women who tried to use black magic to preserve their beauty forever. These women became the first medusas, and whether they are [[Gorgeous Gorgon|gorgeous]] or otherwise, not being able to safely admire themselves in a mirror is part of their punishment.
** Vecna, the dreaded Oeridian [[God of Evil|God of Secrets]] in [[Greyhawk]], would likely crush any mortal who dared challenge him. He is a [[Physical God]], after all, and was a powerful lich even before becoming one: in the module ''Die Vecna Die'', his [[Evil Plan]]s cause him to ascend to the power of a Greater God who threatens to destroy the whole multiverse and remake it in his own foul image. Even worse, he is the God of Secrets, meaning no secret can be kept from him; no mortal can plot or plan against him without him quickly learning every little detail of their plan. [[Impossible Task|What are the heroes to do?]] Well, actually, due to a flaw in his plan, he does have a weakness. Anyone who assimilates one of his two infamous artifacts (the ''Hand and Eye of Vecna'') or one of his lesser Relics (the ''First Digit, Second Digit, Third Digit, Last Digit, Incisors, Molar, Scalp, Skin, Heart, Foot,'' and ''Right Eye'', all parts of his original body) is immune to his divine abilities and is concealed from his omnipotence (including his ability to discern secrets), and anyone wielding the ''Sword of Kas'' (a weapon he forged as a mortal lich and gave to his [[The Starscream|traitorous lieutenant Kas]]) can injure him. While the ''Eye of Vecna'' is unavailable to the heroes in this story (Vecna’s rival Iuz gets it first), the Hand, Sword, and Relics are [[Boss Arena Idiocy|in Vecna’s palace in Caviticus]]. In short, they make it so that in the [[Final Battle]], Vecna must face them mano-a-mano - not that this will make it easy, of course.
* In ''[[Heavy Gear]]'', the advanced ''Black Mamba'' Gear - one of the more powerful designs in either of the two superpowers' armies - had exceptionally weak rear armour. The result is that Black Mambas could be (and routinely were in gameplay) easily defeated by lightweight ''Cheetah'' scout Gears. While the fluff text initially ignored this, the game's designers eventually acknowledged and lampshaded this weakness by having Mamba pilots clamouring for a solution to the "glassback" problem.
** Most [[Hover Tank|hovertanks]] have weak Underside facing, but it can be hit only when the vehicle moves over placed explosives or uses jump jets (to clear obstacles).
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* [[World of Warcraft]] is rife with such weaknesses to make otherwise impossible encounters winnable or just for amusement value. One great example is a quest where you have to get an artifact to defeat a pack of imps. The effect of this awesome weapon? It creates beautiful rainbows... cue sound of heads exploding.
* ''[[Castlevania II: Simon's Quest]]'' features the easiest fight against Dracula in the entire series. There are two weapons {{spoiler|the golden knife and the sacred flame}} which cause Dracula to completely freeze in place. All Simon has to do is repeatedly spam those weapons, and he'll win before Dracula can even move.
** Death is also an incredibly easy boss if you know what ''his'' odd weakness is - garlic. (Well, odd seeing as, unlike his boss, he isn't a vampire.) Buy one clove of garlic, drop it in front of him, and Death is ''stun locked'' and will take continual damage that does him in after about a minute, during which all you really have to do is watch.
* In [[Super Robot Wars Z]] 2: Saisei-Hen, The [[Demonic Spiders|DAMON]] are affected by [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awAi36JjFiQ Basara's singing]. They even take damage, making [[Man of Kryptonite|Basara]] [[Weaponized Weakness|a viable choice for fighting against the DAMON]].
* In ''[[Luigi's Mansion 3]]'', Luigi's gooey doppelganger Gooigi melts on contact with water (a squirt gun is enough to damage him) and instantly disintegrates on contact with fire. It's a good thing he can [[Death Is a Slap on The Wrist|respawn indefinitely from Luigi's location.]]
* In ''[[Fatal Frame]]'', in order to fight the ghosts, the protagonist has to take their pictures with a camera. Okay, it's [[Magitech| a magical device]] called the Camera Obscura, but it's still the only weapon that can harm them.
* In ''[[Spelunky]]'', King Yana is a hellish and difficult enemy (he is the [[Final Boss]], after all) but he has a weakness that took the fans over a year after the game’s release to discover - {{spoiler| eggplants. If the player throws it in his face, Yana becomes powerless and is reduced to 2 HP, one of which he loses from being hit by the eggplant, making it incredibly easy to finish him off. The challenge, of course, is getting an eggplant and bringing it there; you have to first get a Mystery Box (buy it from a merchant) and rather than open it, bring it to Kali’s Altar, where it turns into an eggplant. Then you have to carry it there, which is difficult because ''any'' action done with it other than gently placing it on the floor will destroy it.}}
== Web Comics ==
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* Another spoof of ''[[The Wizard of Oz (film)|The Wizard of Oz]]'' comes from ''[[Darths and Droids|Magicians & Munchkins]]''; the [[Wicked Witch Of The West]] simply [http://www.darthsanddroids.net/magiciansandmunchkins/episodes/0050.html took this disadvantage] to get a few additional levels in magic.
* Toothgnip the goat in ''[[Goats]]'' gets his [[Kavorka Man]] powers from "The Panties of Potency". This had nothing to do with the artist having trouble drawing Toothgnip standing on all fours, honest!
* Parodied in [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0607.html this strip] of ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'', where, since Haley always has her sandwiches without pickles, Crystal thinks they're toxic to her. {{spoiler|They're not.}}
* In one ''[[Bob the Angry Flower]]'' strip, Bob thinks that a superhero has the Weaksauce Weakness of '''''bacon'''''. He turns out to be totally wrong, but we never find out what the weakness actually is.
** Another one has Bob running a hot peanuts stand, recognizing a customer and his friends as a band of supervillains, and [[Strange Minds Think Alike|instantly and correctly deducing]] that they are actually buying ammunition for an attack on Anaphylactic Man's fortress. (He sells it to them anyway.)
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** And Elites can still go around that with mathematics: Charby is seen weighting both a small sample and the whole heap on pocket scales, and deducing the total number from the sample size.
* Liz's beast-man of a boss in ''[[Dead Winter]]'' doesn't really know how to fight, yet is still able to take on [[Badass|Monday]] pretty effectively due to his sheer giganticness and indestructibility. Monday stabs him in the shoulder, [[Groin Attack|kicks him in a certain area]], etc. but never really fazes him; the heroes end up ''smashing him in the head with a metal pole attached to a fast-moving car'', but this only stuns him temporarily. His weakness? Germs—the imaginary kind. He's such a hypochondriac that slapping him in the face with a dirty mop will [[Freak-Out|give him a panic attack.]] He gets over his fear of [[Zombie Apocalypse|zombie infection]] pretty quickly, though...
* [[Axe Cop]]'s weakness is being surprised. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130217020745/http://axecop.com/index.php/acepisodes/read/episode_72/ He melts.] And his second weakness is [https://web.archive.org/web/20130508122450/http://axecop.com/index.php/acepisodes/read/xmas2010/ cherry rainbow].
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Power At a Price]]
[[Category:Superhero Tropes]]
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Weaksauce Weakness]]
[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]
[[Category:For Massive Damage]]
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