Worf Had the Flu: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"It was an opponent Nanoha-chan wouldn't have had any problem protecting her allies from or defeating if she had been her usual self. But the strain of overexerting herself made Nanoha-chan less capable, and her body slowed down at a crucial moment. The result... was [[Game Breaking Injury|this]]."''|'''Shamal''', ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Strikers]]''}}

 

 

This is often used within fandom, and can be a satisfying answer for fans bothered by the outcome of the battle or use of the trope itself. As the 'flu' is generally pulled from something within the story, explicit or otherwise, it does not necessarily require a blatant [[Retcon]] or [[Canon Dis Continuity]] -- the event ''itself'' is still treated as canonical. Note, however, the new ''reason'' may not officially be, except as a passing [[Ascended Fanon]] by some writers.

 

 

This Flu is also often exploited by a nasty [[Big Bad Wannabe]] in order to have a shot to kill those powerful people, through luck mostly. Of course, defeating those who had flu doesn't mean you are that trope. With planning and exploiting this 'Flu', one can avoid being labeled of that trope.

 

A type of [[Drama Preserving Handicap]]. Compare [[Actually a Doombot]].

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* In ''[[Bleach]]'', Ichigo's poor performance in his battles against Ulquiorra and Yammy, as well as his first battle against Grimmjow, is attributed to his difficulty suppressing his inner hollow. {{spoiler|When he does manage to control his inner hollow, he is still unable to defeat Grimmjow the second time, and loses to Ulquiorra the first time he fights him in Las Noches.}}

** In the Arrancar arc, Hitsugaya, Rangiku and Renji are losing to their Arrancar enemies, but then they get permission to release their [[Power Limiter|Power Limiters]], and easily defeat their foes. Being limited to 1/5 of one's power is a pretty crippling handicap.

** The entire Bount Arc is this trope. Every Soul Reaper who comes to Earth can only use a fraction of their power, and Ichigo has to relearn Bankai for some silly reason. Even the Bount enemies don't reach full power until they travel to the Soul Society.

** In the Invasion Army arc, Ichigo's power was failing after {{spoiler|having used it all up fighting Aizen}}. So of course he was coming into this new dilemma already handicapped.

** Seriously, many of Zoro's battles had him at some sort of disadvantage or not at his full potential. In the battle with Cabaji, he was already injured from Buggy's earlier attack. When fighting Hachi, he was still recovering from his wounds from his fight with Mihawk and had a fever on top of that. He had difficulty with Mr 1 since Mr 1's body can become steel, something Zoro couldn't cut at the time. During the Davy Jones game, he wasn't able to use his swords due to the rules. He only had two swords with him during the fight against Ryuuma. And against Oz, he was still getting used to his new sword Shunsui. With Kuma, he had taken damage from Ryuuma and Oz over the night. With the Flying Fish Riders and with the Pacifista, he was hampered down from his injuries from Thriller Park, along with Luffy's pain that was transferred to him.

* One scene in Episode 52 of the ''[[Naruto]] Shippuden'' anime (which doesn't appear in the manga) suggests that Naruto and Sakura fared poorly against Sasuke in their first meeting with him after the timeskip because of their wounds from their previous battle (although they do realize that Sasuke has gotten far more powerful). Yamato is also holding back, not wanting to injure Sasuke too much, but just after he decides to get serious, Orochimaru leaves with Sasuke.

** Before the [[Time Skip]], during the Chunnin exam tournament, Jiraiya notices the chakra-blocking seal that Orochimaru had placed over Naruto's Kyubi-containing belly-button seal, and realizes it prevented Naruto from channeling properly. Once he removed it, Naruto was able to instantly master the water-walking technique he had been struggling with before. And it might also explain Naruto's rather lackluster performance against Kiba -- Naruto previously never needed any distractions or significant pauses in a fight to create Shadow Clones. Of course, Naruto himself never seemed to notice his own difficulties...

** Tsunade's first appearance has her using then-current [[Big Bad]] Orochimaru like a paddleball. The only reason Orochimaru did not bust out far more powerful moves for the fight was because had previously lost the use of his arms (and thus, most of his jutsus). Jiraiya was likewise disabled thanks to a drug Tsunade slipped into one of his drinks earlier on. Tsunade as well suffered some early damage due to her entirely psychological weakness to blood, making her use her trump card on a healing power. If the Sannin were at their top form during the fight the others there would've been useless and the battle would've dwarfed even the epic rumble that it was and likely not be quite as one-sided.

** So when the yellow-clad Weapons Master does fight the flu-ish Superman, this ironically makes Big Blue that much more dangerous. As he tries to explain to the bad people, he doesn't know if he can stop his punches from taking off heads.

** In one [[Bronze Age]] story, Superman starts having [[Does Not Know His Own Strength]] moments, and fears his powers are growing beyond his ability to control. In fact, the reverse is true: the [[Powers As Programs|Parasite]] is slowly ''draining'' his powers, but he made a point of first draining Supey's sense of self-control that normally keeps them in check. Since he was no longer pulling his punches, they seemed ''more'' powerful even though his baseline strength was actually ''dropping.'' By the time he figured it out, the Parasite had already drained a good chunk of his energy.

* When Erik Larsen subjected the [[Incredible Hulk (Comic Book)|Incredible Hulk]] to [[The Worf Effect]] at the hands of [[Took a Level In Badass|new, improved]] Doctor Octopus, [[Peter David]], who had been writing Hulk comics at that point, wrote him beating Octopus with two fingers, saying that last time he simply "had a bad day".

* An issue of [[New Avengers (Comic Book)|New Avengers]] had Wrecker narrating a fight between the titular team and [[The Hood]]'s crime syndicate, explaining that he wouldn't have lost to [[Luke Cage Hero for Hire]], who is significantly weaker, if [[Doctor Strange]] hadn't confused him with his magic.

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* In one ''[[Sluggy Freelance (Webcomic)|Sluggy Freelance]]'' strip Zoe kicked resident [[Badass]] [[Killer Rabbit]] Bun-Bun [http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=980627 through a wall]. When Zoe [http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=030818 brings this up years later] to try and intimidate Bun-Bun, he responds, "That was then, and you were half naked. Let's rock."

** Durkon rationalises that the rain that prohibited the team from working effectively the first time they battled Miko was a divine sign that they weren't going to win this one. However, she did beat them a second time without the rain slowing the party down. Or he could've been trying to justify why he surrendered the first time and only healed the second time.

** Roy's comment, [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0251.html "Stupid railroad plot,"] lampshades this nicely.

* In ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'', Dermot "[[Blatant Lies|claims]]" the only reason Dean beat him up in a [[Wimp Fight]] was because he was sick at the time. Did I mention throughout that entire episode Dermot "claimed" that his hands were registered as lethal weapons.

* ''[[Kung Fu Panda Legends of Awesomeness (Animation)|Kung Fu Panda Legends of Awesomeness]]'' sees Temutai try to invoke this the second time he faces off with Po, claiming that the last time they fought, he had a head cold. [[You Can Always Tell a Liar|It's very obviously an excuse he made up on the spot]].