Trope Talk: Conservation of Ninjutsu
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
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Ever wonder why stormtroopers are such bad shots? Why a squad of faceless minions function more like set dressing than forces of evil? Why an army of robots may as well be a set of bowling pins for our heroes to merrily knock aside by the dozens? Today let's discuss this bizarre phenomenon with an even more bizarre name!
Sneaky Snitch, Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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I think all Jackie Chan films avoid the problem spectacularly by utilising the environment. We reasonably believe that had this fight been anywhere else, he would've lost. But the unique layout of the environment and threats individual objects can pose of utilised correctly allows the protagonist to win due to their wits. They've "earned" the win through their wits and superior combat skill rather than because they have to.
Jackie Chan is low key one of the best directors in the world. So good he can’t work in Hollywood because they won’t let him make films like that anymore.
This right here 100%
In real life, the environment is a factor in fights that can give one side a massive advantage, choke points and high ground being obvious examples. I imagine that since choreographing fight scenes with multiple people is already hard, having that same fight scenes with environmental clutter and/or different elevations would make things even more difficult.
@@rollingknight9800 I would think it can make things easier. If the hero exploits the environment to limit the options of the group he's fighting, that should make choreography easier when there are less possible options the choreographer has to account for. Combine that with the hero picking off members of the group that foolisly challenge his advantage and maybe making the group become more unwilling to engage as the fight goes on, and you have a fight scene that's much simpler.
His visual acting helps a lot as well. He shows pain, fear, and confusion keeping the stakes feeling high.
And the Shang Chi Bus Fight and the one on the side of the skyscraper do this too.
Even Cap’s elevator fight is better because it’s in a confined space where you don’t have to wonder why one of the henchmen isn’t doing anything.
I’ve always taken it as when they send ONE guy, that’s their elite, one of their best if not their very best. Meanwhile, when it’s a whole room on one, those are usually the nameless, non-elite peons vs a proper badass. Narratively it’s that the masses are usually weaker because the singular tough guy is the elite, and there are fewer of those by definition.
Exactly
Or to phrase it in another way, mooks would act in group if they (are convinced that they) can't succeed on their own. So the weaker ones act in group to cover up lack in individual strength. So it would also make sense for them to go down easier than a singular mook capable to do the same work solo.
I like to think of it the way rank hierarchy typically works. The rank-and-file are typically younger, less knowledgable, and less experienced than the ones who have been around awhile to get promotions or leadership positions. Because of their greater knowledge and experience (as well as other skills they may have picked up, like leadership), they are more important, so to speak, then their subordinates.
Why do people always just repeat stuff from the vids.
She talked about this, I don't get it.
@@michimatsch5862 a lot of the time people comment their thoughts before they've finished the video
my favorite in-universe reason for something like this comes from when the main character goes from fighting a bunch of young guys and winning to fighting one really old guy and losing horrifically. the in-universe reasoning was "beware an old man in a profession where men die young"
I feel like I should point out - this trope is a lot rarer than the number of clips here would imply, because most squads of goons *aren't* the same as the lone threats in the setting. Darth Vader is not a Storm Trooper, Loki is not a Chitauri footsoldier. In the vast majority of cases, the reason why our hero can fight off a dozen faceless minions but then have a much more difficult one-on-one duel with the main villain is simply because the faceless minions aren't that strong. While there are SOME cases of this, Age of Ultron being a solid example, most writers just don't make hordes of things that are supposed to be insanely powerful.
Also because I'm a huge weeb, shoutout to Dragon Ball Z of all things actually having a pretty hard subversion of this in the second Cooler movie. After having a long, painful battle against ONE Metal Cooler, Goku and Vegeta find themselves against an army of them..... and immediately get their asses handed to them, and are captured fairly easily. Granted, how things get resolved from there are dumb as hell, but it was a fun moment.
You can break the conversation of ninjitsu but only a little. The rule seems to be that three is the largest number of effective enemies that can challenge a single hero based on personal observation.
In one book I've read, (Innkeeper Chronicles book 4, Sweep of the Blade by Ilona Andrews) it justified one of these fight scenes by having the character not only specialized in close/ground combat whereas the other 9 were more used to space combat, but also pointed out that the 9 could not rush the character without getting in each other's way.
Also the outnumbered character had taken serious damage, and immediately went (with the protagonist's help, because he could hardly stand on his own) to the mini medbay in his room to get patched up afterwards.
Hey red, just wanna say thank you for all the nice music at the end of your videos, my pet lizard always loves hearing those songs. Hes in the hospital now, but your sings make him perk up. thank you.
1:28: And if they're on fire, you can't grab them.
Given the history of ninjas on this channel, why didn’t blue do this trope talk?
I know, right? I was expecting blue to pop out from behind the bookshelf at any moment.
It could be cool if something did what JJK did with explaining your abilities but with this so it has an explanation and is a part of the power system
David Weber handles this trope well in the Maccabeus Coup scene in "Honor of the Queen", his second novel in the Honor Harrington series.
He establishes early that Honor (the protagonist) is very physically strong due to being from a planet with heavy gravity, she is a practiced martial artist, and she has an alien 'companion' in the form of a 6-limbed empathic, sentient alien cat (Nimitz).
When the Maccabeans attempt their assassination of Protector Benjamin by interrupting a dinner disguised as palace guards, Nimitz was able to warn Honor, giving them an extra moment to react before the assassins started shooting. Honor and Nimitz rush in, bottling the assassins up in the entryway as they gun down Protector Benjamin's guards, and the scene ends as Honor is shot, losing an eye while more guards take the assassin team from behind and Protector Benjamin picks up his dead guard's pistol to shoot the assassin who was lining up the kill shot on Honor.
And losing the eye is something that haunts her for the rest of the 20+ novel series.
The funny thing is, we martial artists know especially that two opponents are not two times as powerful but to the second power as powerful. It's exponential how much harder the fight is when more opponents show up.
My favorite internal reason for a group of bad guys starting to changeable being a non-threat is because they're setting groups because they're young and experienced. Like the ninjas that you see show up in groups are those that just passed their entry level Ninjutsu exam so while they're Bonafide ninjas incapable of fighting civilians they're not good against anyone who has a similar level of fighting skill which is why they're sent in groups to cover each other's weaknesses but they haven't mastered teamwork yet either
If you want a FANTASTIC example of conservation of ninjitsu being AVERTED, look at John Wick 3, where they go out of their way to make the huge crowd of enemies some of the deadliest opposition John Wick has fought, and the time he fights the two apprentice assassins legitimately more intense than the final showdown imo. But yeah, it basically does so through MASTERFUL fight choreography.
Also, the soulsborne genre is literally the first narrative reason writ LARGE. They often throw early bosses at you that will, eventually, become just another mook that attacks you in groups, and between level ups and you LEARNING TO FIGHT THEM, become trivial compared to the late game bosses.
Here for the Jackie Chan footage : D
The exception to this rule: zombies. A single zombie is can be easily dispatched, but a horde means death and defeat
Same applies to undead hordes in general. A single or small group of skeletons? No biggie. A horde of skeletons? Get ready to be recruited.
Ah, but sometimes you get the fun twist (Telltale TWD wooo) where 1 zombie is made super dangerous (confined space, a restrained arm, you are a little girl and it is massive, more zombies nearby that will hear you if youre too loud) while a giant horde means just slathering guts on yourself and walking lol
Telltale TWD was definitely flawed but it did make some fun scenarios
also you can have one zombie be a threat at the start of the story because at that point no one will know they are anything other than a normal person and not just bash in their head, and later on you can have one pop up in a jump scare and still be a bit of a threat.
I'd imagine it's because you don't want to hurt your allies while killing your opponent. Too many people means that they get in the way more often while you try to fight said opponent.
Zombies don't care. They will eat and dismember their own kind if it means getting to you.
@8unnylover to be fair that's The Walking Dead as a whole. They operate on the George Romero zombie rule where they can only shamble, they can't sprint like the Zack Snyder Dawn of the Dead remake/CoD Zombies. Dead Rising does the same thing, the Zombies are slow, but they will overwhelm you if you get thrown off balance because they're relentless. They don't need a break to sleep, to rest, etc. Each person that dies just makes the horde larger, as the means to cut down their numbers whittles away over the years of decimated infrastructure & decay. Ammo and weapons don't last forever, while people keep dying.
"The 'Power of Teamwork' has no reason to make a handgun work better" is an absolutely banger line by red
On the other hand, a gun will almost ALWAYS make the power of teamwork more effective.
the power of teamwork CAN make a gun work better!
that's more hands to hold more guns!
But that's not true, you could have a helper reloading magazines for you
except for crew-served support weapons, but yeah
The power of friendship is best displayed in a 4+ man room clearing.
The cap elevator fight has another element. The “mook gang” clearly know they are overmatched even in numbers - unless they can get the special power handcuffs on him.
So the whole fight is actually them trying to use their “special weapon” while he tries to avoid it.
Also the space is confined so the audience can see why they only attack him one or two at a time.
Yep. The real trick for that one is the use of space. Because it's so cramped it works
@@beeaggro2593 This is actually my favorite justification for this trope, because it actually features into the design of choke points in castles and such. It's also the reason why the spiral stairs of castles all specifically corkscrew in the same direction: to restrict the sword arm of the invader, while allowing the defender to swing their sword freely.
@@leyrua so they're basically fucked if the invaders are mostly left handed?
@@NoName-wl5uo In theory, yes. But in terms of application... apparently nobody made SHIELDS designed for left-handed people?
@@NoName-wl5uo I just looked it up, and apparently since the majority of people were right-handed, it was really difficult to find a drill instructor who could teach your men how to hold a sword left-handed. So all of the armor/etc was similarly designed for right-handedness.
Granted, if you did manage to be good at fighting left-handed, you had a significant advantage in a lot of one-on-one fights, because nobody trained against left-handed people.
I think my favorite Watsonian justification was from "The Princess Bride", where Fezzik explains that the reason he's having so much trouble fighting The Man In Black is because he's a *lot* more accustomed to fighting big groups of enemies, which uses a different skillset than one-on-one.
Ohhhh that is right! Fezzik was a lot more comfortable knocking out groups of people than fighting a man that he couldn't catch.
Yeah. Basically, he was so incredibly good at one-on-one fights that he curb-stomped everyone else, so he made it more fair by fighting one-on-many, and as a result, when he finally faced a single enemy again, that was also a fair fight.
And this is genuinely a thing, from both sides! 1v1, 1vX, and Xv1 all require different tactics. Doylist reason #1 really is also Watsonian, and Watsonian #2 applies far more broadly than one might expect. (Talking hand-to-hand, of course. Once ranged weapons are in play, numbers become a far bigger advantage. Honestly, ninjas and storm troopers shouldn't be lumped together like they are here.)
Yes!!
I was waiting for Red to say this! You beat me to it.
I really need to incorporate a 'minions accidentally did their job' scene in my next story, where they successfully capture the protagonist fairly easily due to sheer numbers, but now they have to wait for their boss to get there, so they awkwardly make conversation with protagonist and we get to see both of their perspectives. In the end, while they're still enemies, everyone gains a better appreciation for what the other side is thinking.
That sounds really entertaining, I’d love to read a story that does that
Even more hilariously, what if The minions that capture them are absolutely freaking out and one of them gets so excited that he gets to give a monologue like a real villain or something
This sounds like something out of Discworld.
Makes me think of the Christmas Truce during World War I. Both sides got a chance to talk, share cookies and booze, play soccer, and show each other pictures of their families back home. It was kinda hard to get them to go back to fighting after that.
There’s an episode of Phineas and Ferb that’s actually the inverse of this. In which Dr Doofensmirch builds a machine that would kill anyone whose indecisive and Perry remembers Phineas and Ferb where indecisive earlier that episode, so he cuts Dr Doofensmirch mid evil monologue, beats him up, puts him in handcuffs and calls his boss to have him actually arrested and put in jail.
And his boss “Uhmmm this is not... how we usually do it, i guess we’ll send you... reinforcements???”
So Perry and Doof just kinda have to awkwardly stand around and wait for the rest of the episode. I thought it was a really funny subversion as well as a sweet character moment.
"Good God, why are we only using weapons from Japan's Edo period?"
"Hey! The Edo period was badass, and you know it!"
"Damn it, you're right."
By jove! The villain looks so cool! How will we ever defeat him?
Heheh, Helluva Boss
But the Japanese did have the Tanegashima matchlock rifles even before the Edo Period. In fact, Oda Nobunaga, one of the first great unifiers exploited the use of guns arguably more than any of the other Daimyo.
@@operleutnant7235 They're literal dorks, and people too stupid to make the password anything other than "1111" (I'm serious, _that_ was the password to their hideout if you haven't seen the show), so likely they either didn't properly research the period, or ignored the guns because they weren't "cool" enough.
That episode rocks so hard!
Now I want to write a world where conservation of ninjitsu is a real force, and you have to be careful when fighting a group because taking out one of the group will give all the rest a power boost. If your friend is struggling with the enemies they've engaged with, killing a different enemy could endanger them.
A world where Conservation of ninjutsu is as much of a law of nature as gravity sounds awesome
Pokemon gave Kimgambit an ability like this, amusingly. Gets an offensive buff for every fainted Pokemon in your team
Dr McNinja. One of the villains clones the hero hundreds of times so he can kill the hero while he’s weakened by this exact trope
@@GreenEyedPsycho If you like the idea of story tropes being like a law of nature in universe, go check out A Practical Guide to Evil! The whole premise of the world is that stuff like the Rule of Three and Mentors Dying to Give their Student Plot Stuff are just like that, I can't recall if Conservation of Ninjutsu was ever used though.
The DmD difficulty in Devil may cry games works exactly like this. Kill too much enemy and the last one get major power buff
Another Watsonian reason is "If they were powerful, they wouldn't have needed to send a huge group of them."
true, but that explanation falls down if earlier in the story one of them poses a threat.
@@matteoar and as such, here come the corrected version : "If they were powerful ENOUGH, bla bla bla"
If they were smart, they would have sent a huge group of powerful minions to finish off the hero early.
@@matteoar That can be solved by not showing both one ninja and the ninja army in the same work. For example, in Ninja Turtles, the average foot clan member is a barely trained Street rat or disposable robot. However, they do have actual Ninja Masters in their ranks, so foot clan leaders can pose a significant threat. When done well, these are our easily identified characters.
In general, it's all a matter of ensuring that you write around your requirements and think about what you're saying
I definitely thought one of those reasons would be "they're disposable and trained as little as possible just so there's a lot of them"
As someone who does medieval-style reenactment fighting, this is actually a hilariously real issue IRL. Despite efforts to avert it, the Conservation of Ninjitsu *still* plays out on my fighting field, mostly because about the max number of fighters that's practical is a 6-on-1. Any more attackers than 6, and you start getting issues.
If the lone defender is fast on their feet, the attackers on the far ends of the group can't move fast enough to get behind the lone defender and dogpile them properly (they have to run farther, because they're running not only forward but also inward), and they get left behind by the middle of the group formation pressing in on the lone defender, so the defender is fighting a fewer-than-all-on-1 instead. Ninjitsu conserved: the fighters on the ends are just running to try and keep up.
Hitting your buddies is also an issue if there are too many of you attacking a lone defender. As are even more basic concerns, like not having the room to move, not being able to strike because your buddy's equipment or body is in the way, and getting confused yourself about what's going on because there's so much motion around you. Ninjitsu still conserved: the fighters outside that inner ring of about 6 are just gonna stand there, or look like they're shadow-boxing as they try to find an opening.
In addition to all that, it's shockingly hard to be coordinated as a team. The group I fight with practices weekly, has been doing so for a while, and we're still nowhere near as coordinated as we should be. Our swordmaster *still* wins 6-on-ones, and makes us, each a competent fighter in our own right, look like mooks. To our shame, Ninjitsu again still conserved.
There's even a bizarre but very real version of the bystander effect, where less confident fighters will hang back or attack weakly even if they're in a really strong position, because they feel like Someone Else (the more confident, more assertive and aggressive fighters) should be handling the problem that the lone defender poses.
TL; DR: Unbelievably, this is a real thing. And even a moderate skill disparity makes it totally feasible for one guy to beat a crowd of mooks.
Also tldr: friendly fire is a thing
It's a much bigger factor in melee fighting than ranged, but there is still the issue of surrounding someone is a bad thing when you are using ranged weapons because of both friendly fire and over penetration issues.
the weird thing is that the real consequences of a historical melee- that the outnumbered opponent drops his weapon and shield, then easily outruns his pursuers (because, again, he's dropped his weapon and shield, which are physical objects which weigh down those carrying them. This is a much bigger factor in historical battles than in films, because it's not very statisfying when the defeated army runs away before they are even charged, and the other side has no hope of catching them) meant that the practicalities of conservation of ninjitsu were rarely put to the test. Stanford bridge is one possible account (from a contemporary source, though it's unknown how accurate the description was), where a single axeman defended a bridge from an army for so long that they resorted to sailing underneath him so they could stab him with a spear from somewhere that didn't get chopped up by an axe.
Yeah, this is the missing reason (or reasons) I was going to comment if no-one else had.
You don't defeat a mob by challenging the mob; you defeat a mob by challenging individuals - and you don't need to neutralise that many before the mob starts losing momentum...
Also, I don't know about anyone else, but, while, if I were fighting solo against someone who just knocked me down, I'd want to get up pretty quickly so I could continue to defend myself, if I had a dozen other people around, all on my side, I'd be quite happy to let someone else take the next hit while I take the time to consider my life choices rather than trying to get back into the fight as quickly as possible.
Maybe that is why old phalanx-style tactics where so simple, yet common; they make it easier to work together.
Rival Ninja: _"We are perfectly matched, old friend..."_
MC: _"Is that so?"_ **Points behind him**
**Ninja turns to see his **_own_** reinforcements**
Rival Ninja: "NOOO! NOT LIKE THIS! Stay BACK!"
"Your mere presence HALVES my power!"
"No! My armor! It's... turning into.... an ill-fitting halloween costume...!"
this is a reference for something I dont know right?
@@DiogenesofMashad these youtube comment bots are getting really smart uh? I almost thought you were a real person
@@akiradkcn They probably lost track of which video they were replying under, lol.
A similar but unrelated one I’ve noticed;
Character A: throws something that doesn’t land where we expected it to
Audience: gasp of dismay
Character B: “you missed”
Audience: sigh of relief
I'd like to see a scene like
Character 1: "You missed."
Character 2: "Did I?"
Character 1: *rushes them and beats them up* "Yes, yes you did."
even better when its a distraction :
Character A : Throws object
Character B: looks at the object "youve got bad aim"
Character A : Now standing infront of them "id say otherwise"
@@skem9622 that tactic was utilised in my hero academia, in the battle with the hero killer stain.
usually the "you missed" isn't used as a misdirection but as actually hitting a different target which causes a surprising consequences of events to knock down the other guy
My favorite is still in Mass Effect 2.
"See? The human can't hit a simple target!"
isn't this tone armor?
The trope equivalent of:
"Brute ships staggered line, Shipmaster, they outnumber us 3 to 1"
"Then it is an even fight."
The great thing about that line? It's not a boast, it's an honest assessment on his part.
Kinda, but the elites are also the ones who have done basically all of the fighting and leadership for the last 30ish years of the war, in addition to their base level of training and skill, where as brutes just point in a general direction and expect the mooks to follow. The elites were literally swapped out and backstabbed in universe because the prophets knew they were going to figure it out eventually, and they just needed something to order around to finish a mostly won war.
@@padawanashla9094 The Sangheili & Jiralhanae are like Athena and Ares respectfully. Both are warriors, but one values strategy and tactics, and the other pure brute force and violence.
perhaps not shown well in game, but the information we have on the fight give a reasonably good idea on why the Elits win, they'r expirienced, know their weapons and are cunning compared to the Brutes who dont know what they're doing, rely on brute forced, and are not expirienced in space combat
Allegedly a similar dialog took part on the British flagship HMS Victory just before the Battle of Cape St. Vincent in 1797. An officer was reporting the sighting of the Spanish fleet to the British admiral Sir John Jervis commanding 15 ships of the line.
"Eight ships of the line, Sir John!”
"Very well.”
"Twenty ships of the line, Sir John!”
"Very well.”
"Twenty-five ships of the line, Sir John!”
"Very well.”
"Twenty-seven ships of the line, Sir John!”
"Enough sir, no more of that! The die is cast, and if you see fifty ships I will go through them!"
It’s like when the DM puts too many enemies in the combat encounter, and since he doesn’t want to kill the pc’s, the bad guys have a lot of “bad rolls.”
See also: "Elite" Stormtrooper aim.
If you haven't checked out MCDM's 5e minion rules for this, I highly recommend it.
To be fair, I actually do get bad rolls in those situations. My dice understand the game
Being fair, it's pretty easy to put lots of enemies against the protags, if their challenge rating is sufficiently low
That squad of Goblins looks pretty threatening until the Wizard just fireballs the lot of 'em
My DM just rolls the dice and fate is decided. Last session, one PC died because we got into a fight with some not so giant spiders and he was already wounded. He got hit in his head, and died in a single hit.
I love how they handle this in Arcane. In episode 3, Vi has to fight a dozen goons, if it was 12 on 1 she could never win. But because they’re on a bridge, the environment forces them to fight 1 on 2, or at most 2 on 1, and it feels completely natural.
yeah but later when Vi and Jayce fight together it's completely unrealistic that they would win so easily
@@georgevelis4651 I mean it's hard to say. Both sides have fantasy technology we're unfamiliar with. It could just be that the offensive power of hextech is simply superior to the defensive power of the armour worn. Just as in our world our weapons became so good that armour became pointless.
@@ambrisabelle the armor was shown to make it's wearers extremely fast and deadly. there is just no way someone with no training like Jayce could take them down so easily and not get hurt.
@@georgevelis4651 Except that is entirely the point as Jayce points out to Silco (and which Silco notably does not dispute) Hextech is way, way ahead of the shimmer based tech that Silco has. If Silco forces a war, Hextech would turn it into a one-sided massacre. Silco's only saving grace is that Jayce does not want this.
This also has historical precedent!.. sort of. It's reminiscent of the real life Battle of Stirling Bridge where the large attacking force of the English army were held back by a comparatively much smaller Scottish force who only succeeded by taking advantage of how difficult it was for the English to cross the very narrow Stirling Bridge.
"America's ass is FAR too powerful to be spanked THAT easily." Outstanding line.
It also applies to the real America
@@taylor_green_9
No. No it does not.
@@Center-For-I.E.D.Mismanagement it does tho, US isn't spanked, its millitary may be, but the country is kinda invulnerable
@@Center-For-I.E.D.Mismanagement Why not? I'm not even saying it's invincible, only that it's not exactly easy to beat
@@italucenaz
Reread what you just wrote.
Tell me how what you're saying makes any logical sense.
One interesting case of Conservation of Ninjustu actually happens in Naruto Shippuden, and is actively noted by the characters. Near the start of the series, Sakura is working with an elderly puppeteer ninja to defeat her grandson, one of the most notable puppeteers of his time gone rogue. He eventually reveals a technique that lets him control a ridiculous number of puppets, but they mostly go down fairly easy. As they go down though, the remaining puppets become more dangerous, and the characters note that the fewer puppets he has to control, the more focus he can put into the ones that are left
one can also jsutify it with 'splash attacks' if you will. if a character has abilities that lets them throw off larger attacking groups, but its less effective when fighting smaller groups.
That's like literally what happens with the dm in ttrpgs, brainpower is the biggest impediment to controlling large groups of mooks.
That's so true and is one of the main reasons that fight is one of my favorites. Not only does it play out believably, well at least in the Narutoverse, but it creates a well-balanced fight. Chiyo has a ton of experience but in her old age lacks raw strength, and this is where Sakura makes up for that weakness. They're also very intelligent minds that can asses and strategize, obviously moreso in Chiyo's case. I LOVE when it was revealed that Chiyo was puppeteering Sakura to help her dodge impossible attacks, because again, decades of experience. On the other hand, Sakura is very effective in her fight against the 100, and she wins some rounds on her own merit. On the other side you have Sasori who is super intelligent, calm, and intimidating as hell; and has every trick up his sleeve. I've heard discussions that Sasori let himself die in the end, and honestly, that's completely fine with me. It doesn't take away from Chiyo and Sakura's victory, nor does the opposite nerf Sasori. Either way, it's believable. And it's so creative with a jutsu that was utilized to its maximum potential, an aspect of the show that was unfortunately lost later when all other jutsu outside special eyes and tailed beasts were rendered useless. I'm not exaggerating when I say that puppet fight is in my top ten fights in all of Naruto.
@@courtneylovett8307 It's also that one fight in the entire series that all on its own challenges the "Sakura is useless"-narrative. Yes, the author was too incompetent to make Sakura a halfway decently written character in the grand scheme of things, but the fight against Sasori shows what it would look like if he actually gave a shit about her.
@@corhydrae3238 Exactly, so much potential wasted.
Moments that made me actually laugh:
"Let's go make a tragic backstory!" with such a genuine and pleasant grin.
"Decisions, decisions" with fallout pip-boy targeting.
""You'll be displeased to learn that my minions are no longer water soluble!"
"America's Ass is far too powerful to be spanked that easily."
"There go plans A through G..."
"The power of teamwork has no reason to make a handgun better"
Not to mention that on the guy with all the targets circled the crotch-shot is valued at 69 points.
@@tortis6342 n i c e
I really like the Spider-man version of this, Peter's fighting style largely involves using his enemies' own weights and strengths against them.
So one Sinister Six is a deadly threat with their own motive against spidey and plan to defeat him, capable of at least slowing him down, but six of them are too concerned with their own personal agendas to stick to any co-ordinated plan, and just charge at him over and over, or if they can be convinced to, will just start attacking each other.
And one Spider Slayer is a hulking piece of technology, capable of busting through concrete with zero effort and thick enough that a spider strength unarmed attack can't pierce its metallic hide, but two or three are one-minded enough in attacking Spider-man that they're willing to hit the other Slayers in the process, and strong enough to go right through each other's armour in doing so.
In general spiderman has powers which allow him to do a lot of problem solving to win fights (I think the best example are the action scenes in spectacular spiderman). He rarely just mows down his enemies and instead has to find out their weakness and exploit it, and if in a group, after getting tossed around for a while, he finds away to get the villains to get in eachother's way.
The Spectacular Spiderman show I feel did a particularly good job of making the Sinister Six feel like a legit true threat to Spiderman while also making it believable that he was capable of taking them down all at once. As he firstly was at the height of the venom symbiote usage and power, and then secondly it made it explicitly clear he was using there attacks against each other and that they had next to no co-ordination or teamwork.
One particular part of the fight that I absolutely adore is that the one member of the Sinister Six who is actively giving directions to others and avoiding friendly fire is Shocker, who in the shows continuity is a mercenary and is used to working in a team along with having a less personal vendetta against Spiderman. And thus he ends up being one of the members who actually fairs better in the fight despite not being as overtly strong as the others (on top his shockwaves harming the symbiote). Meanwhile the mentally unstable Electro and the rather dumb Rhino both get bated and taken out quickly. And Doc Oc sits out nearly the entire fight and just waits until Spiderman is worn down by the others instead of trying to help out.
I remember a kinda recent What If, were Peter kept the symbiote until he goes off the rails.
When he ends up in a fight with the newest interaction of the Six, he crushes them easily. Until, of all people, Kraven and JJ in a Spider-Slayer suit work together to run him into a building on fire, I believe, exploiting the symbiote's weakness and actually taking him down.
It really drives home the point that these villains could absolutely destroy him if they just coordinated, planned and worked together.
My favorite Spider-Man explanation comes from one of the books (I think 'Secret of the Sinister Six') where Spidey tells them that when there's more than one of them to take down and innocent people are at risk he stops caring about *their* (the Six's) safety and stops pulling his punches.
There was one episode where Spidy outsmarted Loki to turn FrogThor back into asgardian
The 2012 TMNT had a great episode where they commented, "It feels like these fights are getting easier"
And then it turns out the Foot Clan has been fast tracking dudes out of their McDojos to make up for the massive losses they've been taking.
That's actually hilarious lampshade hanging
And also a real-life thing. A country going to war is going to send its best fighters, or maybe second-best to play it safe, but if the war drags on eventually they're going to run out of A- tier guys. So the quality drops. And then as losses mount, they have to start taking volunteers, then conscription, or even kids, and every time there's a downgrade in quality.
Yeah I was wondering why the “quality over quantity” approach wasn’t listed as a Watsonian reason for this. If the protagonist is in the top 1% of ninjas in the world, then 90% of all other ninjas (aka MOST of the ninjas they run into over the course of the story or even their lives outside of it) won’t be anywhere near their level, and it would take much more time and resources to train guys who are capable of standing up to them than it would take to just train a bunch of guys could enough to bully around MOST people.
@@jasonblalock4429 We actually see this right now with Russia having changed their conscription laws.
I think this was actually in the first or second TMNT movie plot that the foot clan was more of a street gang where they were just luring kids in and kinda giving them martial arts training so it gets to the point where these turtles that have been training in martial arts their whole lives are fighting the equivalent of white belts...
Being a part of a large group against a single opponent does have a few disadvantages. I once read a work where a good-guy fighter pilot had to fly into the middle of a bad-guy fighter formation, and the good-guy pilot did much better than you would expect because the bad-guy pilots had to worry about shooting or crashing into each other, while the good-guy pilot could just keep moving and fire at anything that moves without particular concern for accuracy.
(The bad-guy pilots DID actually shoot down the good-guy pilot, but not before their formation was in tatters and they'd lost a third of their vastly superior numbers.)
Bad guy: We have you surrounded!
Good guy: Great! That means I don’t have to aim!
WHAT THE FU IS THAT?
SOME KIND OF EMP?
WE LOST A THIRD OF OUR PLATOON
Looks like that cowboy may have saved your ass marine.
CHRIST THIS THING IS A BRICK
LOST FLIGHT CONTROL
REPEAT I HAVE NO FLIGHT CONTROL
I feel similarly about some gun fights, mainly in sci-fi. A lot of the times you see a large group of antagonists shooting at the protagonists and constantly miss, but the protagonist takes one shot at each and takes them out instantly. This is especially weird when the antagonistic force is made up of androids that should supposedly be better at aiming than a real person, yet the protagonist one shots all of them always
1 HK-47 is worth 1000 battle droids
conservation of marksmanship
Oh I'm sorry do you have any idea how much AI programmers *cost*? They wanted like five million credits and you think I was just going to hand that out after they'd overrun time and budget like ten times already? Hell no. So anyways I just uploaded some image recognition software I got off some place my nephew told me about named... "Git ub?" Weird name, no idea what Ub is much less why I'd want to Git them, whatever that means. Anyways I loaded my robots up with that and sent them after the heroes. Don't know what those computer nerds needed all that money for, wasn't that hard. Damn lazy young people.
A gun if it can harm the protag like it can against a normal human than it is one shot kill making it a near (or literally) impossible fight even thinking for a millionth of a second death is a garuntee so what else can you do but make them miss there's a reason why gun just yeeted all older tactics as soon as they were adopted at any level because what can a guy with a spear or fist do against like 10 men trained in a month that can attack from a safe distance
@@trianglean806 this looks like an excellent opportunity for slaughter
Imagine a story where our protagonist fights lots of ninjas, but they always have to finish the last 2 with the same blow, because if they didn't, they'd be fighting a single ninja.
I've said this for a while, but the Ultron finale would have been so much more interesting if, instead of a homogenous army of bots made from leftover hydra tech, Ultron had stolen Tony's leftover tech from all the Iron Man suits we saw (and self destructed) in Iron Man 3, and we only had about half a dozen powerful Ultrons to really fight. Or maybe even *in addition* to a bunch of the useless drones. As in, show a bunch of bots getting shredded, but then Ultron reveals that was just the fodder. I would love to have seen a stealth Ultron that can use the cloaking ability and go up against Widow and Hawkeye; a hulkbuster-esque Ultron fighting the Hulk, and others designed to fight against the Avengers. It both would have made Tony face the consequences of his past, but also sown seed of conflict within the group, revealing that Tony didn't fully trust any of them if he was preparing this tech against them. And then, Wanda and Pietro would have played a more pivotal role in the battle because none of Tony's tech was prepared specifically to deal with their powers.
Oooh, this could've worked pretty well if it had forced the Avengers to actually use teamwork to defeat the bots. I feel like facing a mirror of oneself and only being able to defeat it because of the assistance of a team member is something of a trope already but it would at least highlight the team thing better than simply being doing the back-to-back circle thing.
To provide an example, Hulk has trouble with the Hulkbusterbot because of course, he had trouble with Tony in the Hulkbuster, but another of the team is quick/slippery/smart enough to get in and snag a weakpoint.
Yeah. But I think that about the CGI clone armies in general. The only credible threats in the Avengers movies are Ultrons main body, the Black Order (in Infinity War, they shit on that in Endgame) and Thanos.
Also I agree with Red that Pietro should've lived. Such wasted potential
As one of the last surviving _Age of Ultron_ defenders (the others were lost in the Great Purge), I wholeheartedly agree. I enjoy the heck outta that movie, but I'd have loved to see that go down. Imagine if Tony had figured out a way to weaponize that accidental absorption of Thor's lightning, and _that's_ how we found out.
Genius!!! Dang!!! Now I really really wish we would have seen this! And it would give have given us so much drama that the writers wouldn’t have felt the need to create drama by killing Pietro (for no reason).
8:57 One "trick" from an episode of Rurouni Kenshin - When facing overwhelming numbers, start running and force the overwhelming numbers to chase you! Since individuals run at slightly different speeds, the overwhelming numbers end up chasing you in a line. When that happens, turn and quickly defeat each one as they all catch up, one by one.
Kenshin’s whole deal is how fast he is, eh? Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryu, the style of swordsmanship he knows, is based around being quick as hell, observant as hell, and finishing a fight in one attack if you can.
@@joshuahadams He specifically mentions this was a tactic used by others and not just him, I've got that volume of the manga. It's pretty early on and it's him giving advice to Yahiko on taking out a group of thugs who want to rob the joint where Kaoru and the others like to eat and Yahiko wants to protect the place and the young girl he's crushing on who works there. Yahiko is young, using a bamboo sword, and has no training in the way Kenshin fights as he's learning Kamiya Kasshin-ryu from Kaoru at her family dojo.
One thing MMORPG players learned back in the day, pulling and separating out small chunks of bigger mobs to take out in sequence. (Usually with hard Crowd Controls from a dedicated 'mezzer' and coordinated focus fire so no one breaks them out of the CC via damaging them.)
Assuming of course, you can run faster than them, which was a problem for the kid (what was his name?).
Though the other solution he came up with was also viable: physically force the goons to come at you one at a time, like in a narrow ally.
(Though AGAIN, that only works if they have to get you, so...😅)
A version of this was historically a tactic used to defeat moderately disciplined infantry, especially by cavalry armies (who basically just die against spearmen in good order). Start to charge, fake a retreat, hope the infantry either flees at the charge or chases the retreat, repeat. (The formal name for this tactic is "caracole".) If the enemy army doesn't have enough cavalry, all they can do is stand fast and wait, and it takes a _lot_ of discipline to hold men in place for potentially hours on end.
I think the Mandalorian season 2 did this really well. Din goes up against the first Dark trooper and they are SCARY it takes so much effort just to kill one and then when it’s all over we learn a whole team of dark troopers are coming to capture Grogu. But when Luke shows up and kills all of them it doesn’t feel like the Dark troopers got weaker it just makes it feel like Luke is on a whole other level.
The inverse of the Worf effect
well he is not a jedi, he is THE Return of the Jedi. This is better than aged grump misurable luke. This is the luke we love.
Wow. I've never seen the "That was a calculated move, but man are we bad at math" meme work on so many levels to describe something...
Surprised to see a comment from you this low.
I'll help you out with a like and reply.
Where was it? I must've missed..
Absolutely love seeing comments from you lol, your pfp and name make me giggle every time
@@galaxystudios370 right??
We meet again my good sir I hope your doing well and I look forward to randomly finding yoyr next comment
6:00 PRATCHETT’S SO GOOD AT SUBCERTING THIS
Like seriously, in Guards! Guards! and many others of his books there’s little bits where a squad of palace guards or whomever are really nervous about rushing the protagonist, for reasons such as:
“He looks like a hero. We’re not paid to handle heroes.”
“Look at him! He’s unarmed! They’re way more dangerous when they’re not armed”
“He’s gonna do a swing on the chandelier or something, you know, they always do, and then grab the ornamental swords from above the fireplace and we’re gonna end up rushing him one-on-one and getting mullered”
(Eventually they are cajoled into rushing him and he doesn’t resist)
They sound so traumatised
Guards Guards is even in honour of those faceless guards asked to fight a hero in act 2 for inadequately explained reasons just to show off the hero's fighting skills.
Ahhh, Lupine. What a dude. I hope more people read this comment and go read "Guards! Guards!" bc it's brilliant.
Another great Pratchett subversion: The Last Hero. The Silver Horde (which is actually five old barbarian heroes) go up against Captain Carrot...and are terrified. Because (amongst other things) they have the numbers advantage, they realize they're no longer the heroes of the story and that Carrot is. "You followed the Code, and you became part of the Code for those who followed you. The Code was it. Without the Code, you weren't a hero. You were just a thug in a loincloth."
Don't forget Rule One.
One thing I was surprised wasn't brought up is how a subversion of this trope is used for the Heroic Sacrifice. Sure, lots of times the sacrifice is against the named villain as mentioned in the video, but other times the group of heroes is being chased by the horde and one stays behind to buy time for the rest, usually locking a door after the rest of the heroes had gone through. They'll say their last words of wisdom, the other heroes will beg them to not do it, and they'll probably get a cool few kills, but eventually the numbers will overwhelm them.
And then there's the exact opposite, River Tam….
@@CritterKeeper01 To be fair, that Oatie Bar commercial was wild, and I could absolutely see someone dismantling a bar in a fit of berserk excitement.
Jim Bowie Moment.
@@CritterKeeper01 That's exactly what came to my mind of that description.
Unless you're King Dedede
I think my favorite way of handling this trope is from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. These stories take place in a world with a magic field, not unlike our own magnetic field, allowing for all sorts of otherwise-impossible things. One consequence of this is that stories have a sort of potential energy, so much so that a library became a portal to other worlds. As a result, this universe presents plot armor as a Watsonian phenomenon, with characters winning fights solely because it makes for a better story.
The best example of this is probably from The Last Hero, in which Cohen the Barbarian, in his final adventure, attempts to summit Cori Celesti, an analogue of Mt. Olympus, and kill all the gods with a bomb. This act would end up destroying the whole planet, so Captain Carrot, a city watcheman who is one of several characters in this universe to possess seemingly-impenetrable plot armor, goes to apprehend them. When he attempts to single-handedly arrest the band of adventurers, they back down, on the grounds that, "One brave man against seven... won. They knew it was true. In the past, they'd all _relied_ on it. The higher the odds, the greater the victory."
"The odds are one in a million...But it just might work!"
Don’t forget when the one guy tried to order his guards to seize Vimes and they all balked on the basis that it never goes well for a group of mooks ordered to seize one man like that
@@AegixDrakan A common quote from the series is "A one in a million chance happens nine times out of ten".
Another example of Cohen is in Interesting Times (The one where Rincewind ends up in Not!Asia) where he and his Silver Horde are fighting an army, and Cohen says that realistically, you're only fighting about 6 or so people at a time as the army is more likely to get in its own way. Of course then a terracotta army comes along and mows down the army, so...
@@Thozmp Rincewind even tries to appeal to common sense and says that everybody knows what happens when a small group of people fights an army and Twoflower agrees: everybody does indeed know what happens - they have to win. Otherwise the world's just not working properly.
One of my favorite examples of this was in season 5 of Samurai Jack. He couldn't even take on one of them when he held his no-kill code, so all of them just bodied him, his gear and arsenal of weapons were trashed, and he was running for his life. But once he accepted that he had to kill to survive, he played it smart, picked a few off, then took on a number he was more comfortable facing
One of the toughest scenes of Samurai Jack is him realizing that he is killing a person. It's not a robot or a alien but a human
@@MilloSpiegel yeah, but I still find it absurd that in FIFTY YEARS, not *once* has he come across a human he had to kill.
Not to mention, it doesn't really make sense for Jack himself to disregard robot life like that, but hold human/organic life in high regard when, in the past, he's shown feeling compassion for both humans AND robots. In the episode where he fought the baskets shaped super robots, he's witnessed the carnage and destruction these robots left in the path, whole robot villages razed to the ground, and Jack is HORRIFIED by it all. Or when Jack kills the mobster robot sent to kill him, and he listens to his final words about his dog. Or when Jack comes across that robot cannibal family that, when they start eating each other up, he can only watch in horror. OR in the episode when Jack discovers the ruins of his country in the future, when, at the end of the episode, Jack is implored by a robot to help save his village, and Jack follows at a moment's notice. In all these instances he's displayed very human emotions, like pity and compassion, despite them being "just robots". Because Jack doesn't discriminate. To him, both organics and robots are alive. But Jack also understands that, in order to survive, he'll have to kill, regardless of who or what he's facing. So once again, it doesn't make sense for someone like Jack to feel squeamish about killing humans and disregard robot lives like that. It only makes him come across as a hypocrite
@@floricel_112 slight conter point most of the robots he dose kill and is netrual to the death of them are mindless robots sent by aku not sentient ones I think that's the point or I might be wrong
@@floricel_112 I guess Jack is doing the Turing test subconsciously. The robots he fights don't scream or seem to have emotions. There's also the implicit understanding that synthetic beings don't truly die when their body is destroyed.
@@floricel_112
That whole conflict felt more like meta reference than anything.
The sad part is that so often the solution that is good enough would be a single line explaining it. Imagine for example if in Age of Ultron, when he speaks to Black Widow, that he made an off hand remark about how he envies Starks access to quality materials, and/or how he had higher goals for his army, but the Avenger's irritating resistance forced him to cut corners. Is it a perfect solution? No, but it provides a believable reason. But most audiences don't need a perfect solution for issues like this. As long as there is an obvious good enough solution to keep the suspension of disbelief under control, that enough.
That's what I was thinking. Like, I can reason that Tony had months to work on his designs but Ultron needed an army in a matter of days, so he cut corners. But the movie never mentions this so we can't just assume it.
@@abiwonkenabi7027 Yes we can, just look at star wars fans and the hoops they jump through!
@@fullmetalpleb as a Star Wars fan-ish: Yeah. Fucking hell am I annoyed by that. While I think A New Hope and Empire are _mostly_ fine about this (the only really bad scene I can think of is the Death Star in A New Hope, where the movie itself tells you they let them get away on purpose, even if it still seems weird), people who actually try to explain legitimate incompetency of Stormtroopers or Battle Droids when all logic and lore clearly state they are very competent is quite annoying. Like, hell, the scenes shows in this video are _super_ battle droids which are supposed to be legitimately well armoured and heavily armed (still somewhat understandable for Jedi to have a good chance, but the Windu fight is stupid) and Stormtroopers which are the well-trained and equipped if not quite elite "marines" of the Empire, not random Army conscripts with no training.
Ultron could have also mentioned putting a less-advanced AI into his army and blocking silent communications between units because he wouldn't want them turning on him like he'd turned on Stark, explaining why they all "fight" like idiots. There is *no* other reason that _ROBOTS_ should not be constantly using perfect squad tactics, especially when they're an army that is *literally MADE* to fight TOGETHER. If nothing else the Avengers could have brought a wifi jammer!! ...Sorry, I have feelings on this.
@@nerdyspinosaurid Stormtroopers *are* well trained- it’s stated in lore that the Empire cuts corners and their helmets are garbage (Rex has stated that he’d struggle with a Stormtrooper helmet)
"Would be like taking the hero out with the flu"
Reminder that ATLA actually did that to Sokka and Katara for one of the shows most memorable episodes and it WORKED.
Is there anything ATLA _doesn't_ do right
@@YayaFeiLong sequels?
@@bugdracula1662 Ouch. Reality hurts
@@YayaFeiLong Live-action movie adaptations?
What am I saying; there is no M. Night Shyamalan The Last Airbender movie. The Earth King has invited me to Lake Laoghai, and I am honoured to accept his invitation.
Not only are Sokka and Katara defeated by the flu, but Aang is beaten and captured by faceless minions in this episode.
A similar trope that bugs me is the useless elite guard. When the king's elite guard is just as strong and effective as the cannon fodder that the heroes just beat earlier but have fancier outfits, then what's the point of distinguishing them so much. (This is especially annoying to me if the grunts have ranged weapons but the guard are melee only.) I say if the hero just defeated 8 grunts no problem then have them fight 2 elite guard with moderate difficulty, or a similar power conversion.
Oh, by mentioning the robots you bright up another trope I like "It's not blood if it's not red." The action can be as gory as the writers want so long as the alien monsters bleed blue and the heroes don't get hurt too bad.
Depending on what kind of evil emperor you've got, their elite guard might be more selected for loyalty (or other less-relevant traits) than competence, might be corrupt, etc. Doesn't work for the brutally efficient style of evil emperor though.
“It’s not blood if it isn’t red” oh yeah. Star Wars is notorious for this!
@@commissarcactus1513 In history we have a lot of "elite" guards/military being place to put fourth+ sons of nobility and not much skill at all.
@@Levsa399 I was thinking Samurai Jack and Osmosis Jones as well.
@@commissarcactus1513 They should still have better gear at least.
There's a couple of points in the Webcomic Dr. McNinja where this comes up, but one of the most hilarious bits is when the Zombie Ninjas show up and the whole "Conservation of Ninjitsu" and "Useless Zombie Horde" tropes end up canceling each other out in some kind of metaphorical divide by zero error and the Horde of Zombie Ninjas becomes worryingly competent again apparently purely by accident.
I like these in-universe explanations:
The first is, to borrow from Bender from Futurama: "Should I get 1 $300 mercenary, or 300 $1 mercenaries?" Namely, that the big bad still has to spend some form of resource to get pieces on the field, and this round, they chose numbers over a single more-threatening option.
The second occurs when the hero(es) becomes too much of threat, and the Big Bad is just like: "Send everything!" Except, the problem is the heroes have already struggled hard and won against the initial threats, the first round of upgrades, and the direct threats the Big Bad made specifically to stop the heroes. The Big Bad is now on the defensive, and his only remaining play is to hope sheer numbers can bring the heroes down. The problem is that, if any of the remaining people were notably useful against the heroes, they would have been sent already. So, there's not enough people who warrant a real threat to the heroes.
The latter sounds like a hilarious 3rd act breakdown.
"SEND EVERYTHING!"
"But sir, they defeated all of our combat units"
"THEN SEND THE JANITORS! THE COOKS! THE BABYSITTERS! EVERYTHING!"
In regards to the first paragraph, I'd have to answer a question with a question: Boss fight or Zerg Rush? 😆😆😆(Yes I like StarCraft)
There's also the more exotic "The villain's magical power-up is distributed among the mook squad, so as they die one after one, the remaining ones absorb their power and grow stronger until there's one single mega-mook" version.
Those are fun explanations, but they do require some exposition. If you don't know the reason this particular group of enemies was dispatched to deal with the hero, the conclusion will be the same as before. You can do some of it with visual storytelling, but it still does complicate the script somewhat. If you write a story with this in mind, you do have to pay actual attention to it. You can't just leave it implicit. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though. It's simply a tool that can either be used correctly or incorrectly.
My personal favorite is something I've seen done only once in a book which rapidly became a favorite of mine: conserve nothing, make the enemy scared and hammer from there.
In this story, one of the main characters sees someone being attacked on the road and runs out to defend them. He does four things:
1) psyches himself up for the fight while simultaneously acknowledging this will likely kill him (there's about 8 guys, any two of them could just kill him)
2) pull out the biggest sword they've got and charge, screaming, at them.
3) kill the closest ones immediately in graphic ways to intentionally terrify his enemies, using the sheer intimidation to make them panic and not strategize to easily get in his blindspot with a spear.
4) immediately start losing when they collect themselves and strategize, and need to be bailed out by someone else.
He still manages to kill four out of eight of them, when any two of them could have easily killed him, but because he's very well trained and knows how to get inside his enemy's head, he manages to fight stronger odds, at least for a little while. He can't take on an army, but he can make an impression on them.
I find it funny that now that I've heard of this trope, this is explicitly how shadow clones and other clones from Naruto are stated to work, via the character making said clones distributing their chakra "ninja energy" across a whole bunch of copies, with handfuls of clones being considered at least somewhat comparable to the original user, whereas an entire clone army is typically used either for utility purposes, such as using them for mobility, accelerated learning and self co-operation or as distracting cannon fodder while the real person prepares a real attack while obscured in a horde of perfect visual copies of themselves, or as a number evener, where the single person is facing a group of enemies and is ALREADY stronger than each individual, but it'd be easier and more time efficient to use weaker clones to stomp the already weaker enemies faster.
Not to mention that only Naruto, owing to his Uzumaki heritage and the Nine-Tails' chakra, has the reserves necessary to actually make a shadow clone army; others are limited to a handful of clones at most.
There are other places where it comes up: Sasori's 100-puppet technique controls 100 puppets but can't control each one as well individually as controlling only a few of them, and then there's Nagato's Six Paths of Pain: while powerful and able to coordinate perfectly, each Pain can only use one of Nagato's six signature abilities, meaning the real Nagato is stronger than the six paths combined (or, he would be if he wasn't frail and paraplegic).
That's where the name actually comes from.
@@nemohimself2580 Doubtful. _Naruto_ wasn't a big name when ConservationOfNinjutsu was added to TVTropes, especially among the Tropers of the day. It's possible, because the dates line up, but it's a common enough concept (for all the reasons Red mentioned) that there's no reason to believe the name has anything to do with _Naruto,_ especially since the clone jutsu mechanics are a weird example of the trope.
Tbf there's a point in the series where he makes unofficial 'super clones' which he made 12 clones one of which was considered so useful in the war their leader let tons of their men die to keep this clone active in the fight which to me makes it make no sense to use his 1000 clones while he could save chakra making like 8 who could all individually take out kage.
@@neolord1215 Yes, but he was still dividing his power, it's just by that point he made those clones using pure tailed beast energy, so of course they were kage level, because the nine tails is stronger than the vast majority of kage.
The more _Trope Talk_ videos exist, the more I want to see a show in which someone always get's annoyed that the Tropes aren't correct and tries to help the Villains to do it right.
_„No, no, no! You can't defeat the Hero with an army! No-one knows the soldiers, that means they will lose! You need one man who is already known and totally badass, so that the heroes lose and later win against the badass!“_
You might find "A Practical Guide to Evil" amusing
@@duckdodgers1953 well, that sounds interesting. I think I will look into that, thanks!
This is very close to the Austin Powers "why don’t you just shoot him," scene.
I feel like i read something that tried to do this in its pitch/opening bit but didn't in the rest of the story, cant even remember the title
this is called being "genre savvy" and it works great until it very suddenly doesn't
Ah, one of my favorite tropes! I love it when stories play with this one. My favorite application of it was probably in the 'Doctor McNinja' webcomic, which basically treated Conservation of Ninjutsu as some kind of law of nature. One of the titular irish ninja doctor's nemeses (Nemesises? Nemesii?) actually tries to use this to defeat him, by having him *cloned* and then fighting all the clones AND the original, alone. Suddenly, the narrative laws are on HIS side, and Dr. McNinja is getting his ass kicked just as easily as his disposable clones. He's only able to overcome this by changing his outfit to imitate the bad guy's aesthetic style and *joining his side* , thus drawing on his side of the Ninjutsu-equation for the moment... while simultaneously turning several OTHER narrative tropes to his advantage. After all, when the villain initially refuses to fight alongside him, rejecting his offer of 'help', he becomes The Guy Who Hasn't Learned The Value Of Teamwork Yet, and automatically starts to get overwhelmed by the clones.
Of course, once all the clones have been crushed... it's just two ninja-guys again, at which point the *best* ninja is going to win. Brilliant!
I am surprised this isn't mentioned in the video. McNinja was the title holder on tv tropes for a while and it's how I ran into it years ago.
@@kevinbair8486 Nah, McNinja was a DIFFERENT trope - that one was about how something remarkably ninja-like seems to crop up in just about any setting or culture. Vaguely European Fantasy-World? Ninjas. Arabian Nights setting? Possibly pot-smoking ninjas. Futuristic Space-Opera? Cybernetic ninjas. France? Ninja Mimes. Wherever you go, in time or in space, there will always be ninjas there, waiting for you. And if you don't see any? That just means they're really GOOD ninjas.
Trope Fight!
Where do I find this I love it
Ah, you beat me to it! Nice job- I see you're a man of culture as well.
This is why I really liked Dredd, actually: they knew they were *ridiculously* out-gunned so they used clever tricks and training, not just plot armor. And so it felt like they were truly in danger all the time but also able to believably overcome it.
That movie really deserves more love. And a sequel. 🤔
I love Dredd and the first The Raid for those kinds of action
Dredd is underrated af
@@victorconway444 THANK YOU!!
Not enough people have watched it, but everyone that I've convinced to watch it has loved it!
@@MumboJ yeah, I was honestly really surprised by how much I enjoyed it, it was excellently done, I'd love a sequel (or 10)
8:26 "Is the flaming sword new?" "You noticed!" just warms my heart for some reason.
It's hilarious that when the Protag is seeing Target Points on a faceless minion, the crotch is labeled 68, while everything else goes only up to 50
Should've been 69
Reminds me of classic Fallout, where you could target the groin
That's not very nice.
6:44 and 8:30 - I want a whole episode of some show based solely around these two mooks taking down the hero and not being sure what to do next. “Are you gonna start monologuing?” “Oh gosh, do I have to?” “I can give it a shot, I’ve got grievances.” 😂
Also 6:48, "Let's go make a tragic backstory"
I think you'd love Joel Haver. I don't think I can link, so just look up his "when the controller dies from the NPCs' perspective" and go from there, they're all genius
'I can give it a shot, I’ve got grievances.' holy hand grenade I can feel that one. LMFAO!!!
Fezzik kind of explains this in The Princess Bride, talking about how he's out of practice fighting just one person since he got used to fighting gangs for charity. "You use different moves when you're fighting half a dozen people than when you only have to be worried about one."
And by contrast, fighters can only gang up 2-3 on one before their combat ability tanks unless theyre specifically trained in dog-piling combat.
At most. Six guys with spears is the most you can pin against one opponent in close quarters combat. Before theres too much risk of not just friendly fire, but allies weapons interfering with your own strikes. Spears have the advantage of being a thrusting weapon and can be used without obstructing the dude next to you much. Swords and axes have long swing arcs and are an active hazard to the dude next to you.
My favorite instance of this trope is Dr. McNinja, where it is specifically invoked and the bad guy CLONES THE PROTAGONIST TO WEAKEN HIM it's wonderful
And of course, the hero’s solution:
Join up with the antagonist to form a buddy cop duo to fight the ninja clones. The villain can’t opt out of the team-up, because the ninja army is now slightly too strong for him to handle alone.
And then the good guy joins the bad guy to kill his clones and then finish off Mclaser pants.
I was waiting for someone to drop the Dr. McNinja reference. Still one of my favorite web comics of all time.
This comic was the first time I'd ever heard this trope specifically addressed, and then specifically defeated. Such a great series.
I didn't know someone else was going to mention this. But yeah, my favorite usage of it as well!
The Stormlight Archives has a pretty neat take on this trope. Basically, a character who throughout the entire series had been using a magic sword and power armor to curbstomp legions of enemies has to fight with a plain broadsword and no armor against about twenty barely trained peasants with sticks, and the fight is so brutal and difficult that it somehow feels like a greater feat of skill and talent than his aforementioned legion-curbstomping.
That's because Brandon Sanderson is a deity. He is the god of creative writing, and quite possibly one of the greatest authors to ever grace the face of this planet.
@@Lord_necromancer doesn't hurt he does something unthinkable to hack writers, actual research.
I've only read them once as they came out, and I don't remember this. Which fight was it?
@@HenshinFanatic And something equally unthinkable among great authors: Actually finish his books.
@@Carewolf Even on that scale, he does finish and publish an insane amount of books.
8:57 my favorite example of this was the "dog/pig/dog/pig/loaf of bread" thing from the mitchells vs the machines. and then in the final battle they had those robots who are like "We can tell the difference between dog and pig and bread"
There was a webcomic called Dr. McNinja where they explained this as “the inverse ninja law” in one of the arcs. It actually played into the bad guy’s plan. Since the hero was a ninja and was unstoppable alone, he forced him to fight alongside dozens of other ninjas to lower his abilities. It was great!
Wait what the fu- I NEED TO READ THAT
The bad guy didn't just find other ninjas. He CLONED Dr. McNinja dozens of times just to invoke the law.
@@makelgrax It's freely available online. Issue 17: Army of One is the relevant one to this trope talk and I highly recommend the entire dang thing.
@@chrisossu2070 YOUR RIGHT!!! I forgot about that! I need a re-read
Was a bit disappointed that I had to go this far down to find the Dr. McNinja reference but for anyone looking to jump into the series, BUCKLE UP IT’S A WILD RIDE!!
Poor goons. It's a tough job, gooning. If you get into it, make sure there's medical coverage.
IRL I have a job that would probably count me as a "goon" (I'm a security guard)
They should unionise. They can be the Goonion (shout out to PandaRedd for that one)
@@someoneawesome8717 Do you practice your background shadow boxing in the event that you and the rest of your team find yourself getting into a group vs 1 battle against the protagonist? That should be a key part of any goon training.
@@VegetaLF7 Also pretending that one hit did you in so you don't have to be comic relief goon who keeps getting back up only to be off-handedly knocked down again.
@@someoneawesome8717 Lucky for you, you don't live in a fictional world.
My favorite subversion of this trope probably has to come from the Middle-Earth Shadow of Mordor/War games, where any random smuck in a loincloth can kill you and suddenly becomes a high ranking general that you have to take care of later.
It was especially cool because it’s almost exclusive to the medium of video games. They player is expected to die now and again, while a movie protagonist is not. A good example of really embracing the genre!
I had to get that one promoted all the way for the achievement. Over the course of both games, he refused to stay dead and basically became unstoppable.
special shout out to red for ending every episode with "so, yeah" because thats how I ended every verbal presentation in 12 years of public school.
This is actually a REALLY useful trope talk for D&D. Lately, I've been feeling that combat has been getting stale, even though I am using monsters in HORDES that the players struggled with to go against alone. But this actually explains why. Thanks as always! You all are awesome!
Tbh, a good feeling of progression is when stuff that used to be a bossfight turns into a trashmob without the enemy getting any weaker. Early in the campaign, you encounter a Mohrg? They're leading an army of undead and it takes you all you can to defeat them!
12 levels later, you reach the Vault of the Dead, it is crawling with Mohrgs. You cut your way through them, even able to handle them in 1v1 combat with minimal risk. And at the end - you take on the dracolich behind it all!
Due to the Action Economy, this trope is far less likely to happen in d&d unless a dm specifically designs it to occur. This is especially true in a game with bounded accuracy like 5e.
The single most effective way that I have found to make encounters interesting is by playing with the environment. Having every fight be in a featureless 20x20 room is the equivalent of a tutorial fight and should be used sparingly, if ever.
Instead, having to fight that trio of kobolds in a room which has, for example, booby traps which they have set previously and know where they are and use to their advantage makes the encounter far more interesting. Even things like tables, chairs, and other mundane items can serve as improvised weaponry or cover under the right circumstances.
Of course, that also requires that you as the GM play the enemies intelligently and in a way that encourages the PCs to use the environment in this way.
As an example from my own game: I had an encounter where the PCs were looking for a missing person and were exploring his abandoned shanty for clues. While they were looking they were attacked by a rival adventuring group which all happen to be bards who own a portable floating stage for their shows. So the PCs had to use the house as cover while the bards (acting as a single entity) were spamming empowered sound burst spells from the high ground, blasting chunks out of the house in the process. The PCs ended up winning when the rogue stealthily climbed a nearby tree and then jumped down onto their stage, knocking it down to ground level and disabling its sound amplification. It was a fun encounter 😊
Thanks for reading if you made it all the way here. Cheers 🍻
I think part of dnd issues are bad signals of unique features, immunity and such. The complexity of more unique stuff water's down dms ability to focus on it well. Just like choreography.
@@ultralight9625 Yeah, the inverse effect is the reason why major bosses get Legendary and Lair actions to counter a party’s ability to just dog pile them
Eliot in Leverage is a fun example of partially subverting this, because he’s *specifically good* at fighting large groups of idiots. It’s really fun, because the fight scenes usually manage to sell the fact that he always wins because he’s just that good. It helps that he usually avoids actual one-on-one encounters.
Interesting. I'd like to see a protagonist take on 2 enemies at once, each enemy supporting each other, like Duel of the Fates but with priorities switched.
Technically happened on Civil War when Iron man had to fight both Captain and Bucky at the same time.
@@ruyman90 Yes! But that was all protagonists.
They did that in John Wick 3 near the end.
Ornstein and Smough when you aren't summoning.
*Laughs in Dark Souls 2*
Jokes aside, the Nailmasters Oro and Mato, Sisters of Battle, and the Watcher Knights in Hollow Knight are fun examples.
One watsonian justification that seems to have got overlooked, though could like a protag power up be another look alike instead of true conservation of ninjutsu
Aces and mook/hierarchy of power: not all members of a group are created equal so while it may look like the protag is moping the floor with a enemy they had trouble with one on one, the reality is they aren't actually exactly the same, the opponent they had trouble with was a higher grade of mook. This solution even has the virtue of have IRL precedents; there's a reason within a given rank seniority, veterancy, and/or deeds often heavily influence pecking order, those that have been around awhile, or have a natural inclination for it, tend to be more competent then those newer and/or less talented then them
Right, but you have to make sure the distinction is showcased
Or maybe every mook killed powers up the surviving mooks.
@@georgethompson1460 I actually saw that in a book one time
@@willieoelkers5568 This is easily achieved by simply color coding the mooks or a slight change in hat. Gamer Logic dictates that a change in color means either a change in power level or a change in element.
@@TankHunter678 I’m not saying it’s difficult, merely pointing out it needs to be clearly communicated if you use it
As the age-old proverb goes: "Too many ninjas spoil the realism"
Hilariously, this phenomenon never happens in D&D. It’s quite the opposite: a single BBEG can and will be obliterated by the party, while a big enough pack of wolves absolutely WILL shred the heroes to pieces. Because that's how the combat works here, apparently
Action Economy be a harsh mistress...
@@adamloga3788 The more actions a side has, the more power they have. Pit a character with a hundred actions against a hundred enemies, and they'll be on equal grounds.
@@adamloga3788 Absolutely. That's the whole reason why really powerful monsters have stuff like Legendary Actions and Multiattack: to try and balance out the action economy so the single powerful boss monster can still pose a threat.
I like to solve this problem by making humanoids hit like freight trains so the BBEG boss fight is a challenge and hordes of low CR humanoids are a solid "don't try it."
This is why there is a mutiplier for enemy count. 44 stirges is not the same as a single CR 4 monster. It's actually considered stronger than a CR 8 T rex. Even then, my money is on the mosquito birds. Area damage in DND is king for this reason, and it's why Fireball is so enduring. High area damage demolishes swarms and still works great against single targets.
There's one specific type of subversion for this trope that I really like: When a lancer goes off on their own to prove that they don't need any help to be a bad ass and charges directly into a massive group of enemies seemingly because they believe in this trope in-universe only to get warned down and ultimately wrecked by the horde of mooks as a lesson about the importance of teamwork. I'm not 100% sure he ever actually does this specifically, but I can't think about this without picturing Raphael from TMNT.
I actually posted a comment about a TMNT themed subversion. In the 2003 show, Leo ends up getting his face pushed in when the Shredder and his army return for vengeance, and the group almost overwhelms the heroes until the arrival of the police force the Foot to retreat.
Edit: "The Shredder Strikes Back Part 1 and 2." Leo's even lectured about how he wants to go reclaim their home by himself, and loses the battle of attrition, where the rest of the heroes have to work as a team to get out of there alive.
There was a magic artifact in Xiaoling Showdown called the Ring of the Nine Dragons, which allowed the user to split itself into several clones, but the more clones you made, the dumber and less skilful they were.
Now that I think about it, it looks like a parody of this trope.
It's kind of the same with shadow clones in naruto
@@dylanevartt3219 didn't know they made you dumb (never watched the show)
@@dylanevartt3219 or meliodas sacred treasure in 7 deadly sins
@@crocoboi7936 or literally the multiform technique in Dragon Ball
@@dylanevartt3219 Shadow clones don't get dumber as you make more of them. They do get in each other's way though, in more than a few scenes.
It just occurred to me that Amon’s equalist army was just so good at being legitimately threatening because they established how strong a single chi-blocker is, and while they get a bit better at fighting them as the series goes on, it never really stops being a threat, and they get beat up and/or captured by goons constantly. And the thing is, Team Avatar loses to them. They only come out on top because they unmasked Amon (which is a bit of a lame reason because the oppression the equalists were fighting against was more than the exploitation of one man, but still)
Yeah; the equalists were well-handled as a threat. I particularly liked that they avoided open combat when possible: preferring ambushes and such, as they're essentially a guerilla force and they know they can easily be physically outclassed by most of their opponents. The main thing I didn't like was the reveal that Amon was a bloodbender: it made him a complete hypocrite and, combined with the unmasking, felt like it was just there as a cheap way to make the equalists disband. Amon should've remained a non-bender.
@@matthewmuir8884 I've seen a neat concept for a rewrite of season 1, with the main change is that Asami is an equalist, and is Amons right hand minion. Go check out the channel Hello Future Me for the full video, its extremely good
Honestly that was the biggest waste in Legend of Korra. Amon had the most interesting motive of all the villains in the show, but the ramifications of his crusade never really get meaningfully explored.
@@benjaminc924 I've seen it. I liked his rewrite overall, but I dislike that he kept Amon being a bloodbender. It feels cheap and it makes Amon a hypocrite, and it also makes Amon less scary: where, before, he seemed to be a non-bender who could go toe-to-toe against benders and remain calm at all times, now we know he was calm because he could paralyze his opponents whenever he wanted.
If I were rewriting the series, I'd keep Amon being Yakone's son, but I'd make it that Tarrlok was the prodigy their father wanted, while Amon was cast out for being a non-bender and therefore useless to Yakone's revenge. I would write it that, after seeing what it was like for non-benders in other parts of the world, he eventually met an ancient spirit with a grudge against the Avatar; this spirit teaches him about energybending. Learning that there was an era before the Avatar and and era before people could bend the elements was the final straw that pushed him towards his goal.
While all these concerns are valid, the real reason why the equalists disband is that they win. The changes in government and policy they wanted are enacted, and a non-bender is elected as president. The equalists never gave up; they only stopped fighting because they won their fight.
There is actually some surprising real life justification for this. While no where near the same extent, the power of a group against a single opponent doesn’t scale up linearly due to the simple fact that there is a limited amount of space around the person that they’re trying to fight. This doesn’t change the fact that they have numbers, so when one goes down another can come in, but if the hero is strong enough to deal with 4-9 people depending on the environment without getting too tired, it is logically conceivable that they could deal with the entire army.
I think an old version of Baki the Grappler brought this up in the first fight where Baki takes on a group of 50 or so street thugs. He manuevers himself so that he has his back to a wall and the thugs of course see this as him being cornered and attempt to pile on him. But rather, it means there is only room for about 3-4 thugs to attack him at a time because his back is covered.
One of the best examples of this I can think of is how enemies are introduced in Shadow of Mordor. When you start the game you have almost no powers, special equipment, or experience. A single orc is a decent challenge, but a squad is unthinkable. Throughout the game you gain power and skill until you are mowing down entire platoons of orcs, goblins, and worse. They never got less effective (in fact they get special units), you just slowly become an unstoppable force.
"ADAPTED"
Ah, good memories of that game. I remember being dropped into Mordor and beating myself against the first group of orcs I found and feeling so ineffective and needing to run away. By the end I was countering and dodging and slaughtering groups even bigger than that first squad.
The Doom games also exemplify this type of rising challenge EXTREMELY well. (Both new and old.) You start off fighting only zombies and imps and it feels like a survival horror game, but as you go along new bigger enemies are introduced almost like minibosses (Hell Knights, Mancubus, Barons, etc.) until your average fight is an all out brawl of dodging projectiles and battling giants that were once a huge test of skill. It's great.
When I was part of a LARP group years ago, this happened all the time. A friend and rival of mine was once surrounded by around 10 relatively new players in an actual circle, but they each tried to attack him one at a time, hoping someone else would contribute and each time they did, my friend simply parried and countered then immediately turned around to the player he correctly assumed was approaching from behind. Another time, we were playing Capture the Flag and this same friend went for said flag. Now there was a packed in group of 12+ enemy players between him and the flag, and he smoothly cut, parried and worked his way _into_ the packed in group, cleanly cutting through to the flag, prompting me and another teammate to look at each other like "whoa".
Now the thing is, he was *_excellent_* and group engagements, I wasn't. His style was like water, a single movement of his was a full transition from attack to block to attack again, all in a swift, single action. My style was more direct, clean strike in and out, which meant I was great at one-v-ones because I feinted a lot and worked on precision strikes and blocks. But my style left me ill-suited for groups because it was focused on one opponent, I never really developed the skill or style to fend off more than two enemies at most without running backwards to gain distance and thin their numbers in the moment.
It's amazing how this can happen in real life, and yet... not, depending on circumstance.
People without fighting experience tend to *seriously* underestimate the difference in tactics between 1v1 and a group brawl. Even in a 2v1 situation, it takes practiced coordination for the 2 to come in simultaneously and run no risk of hitting each other. In essence, Red's first Doylist justification is genuinely a Watsonian one as well.
As someone who grew up doing fight choreography, it is incredibly hard. Cuz not only are you trying to make this incredibly cool scene, you're also trying to make the scene make sense to the character while simultaneously progressing the story. I like to use the analogy that a fight and an action movie is like a song and a musical. It's supposed to convey something in the story.
When I was super young I was a part of an RP group and one time everyone else in the group decided they wanted their characters to suddenly turn evil, so we all concluded that my character, the now sole non-evil character, would rank up a few times to balance the playing field. it's pretty funny how much I look back on those RPs and think about how much we knew about tropes and narrative structure without actually knowing we knew
I've always known this trope as the Inverse Ninja Law. Along side the Law of Just One Man.
Yeah Inverse Ninja Law is how I've always known it.
I remember a bunch of guards in a Terry Pratchett novel going "A-arrest him? But...But sir! He's Just One Man! :o He'll...He'll start swinging from the chandelier or something and kill us all!" XD
An extract from the Evil Overlord List: "If my advisor ever says "But he is only one man! What can one man do?" I shall say "This." and shoot him."
@@AegixDrakan I just started reading Discworld and recently finished that one! It was in one of the first two books of the watch series and they were talking about Vimes.
Doctor McNinja? That's where I first learned of the Inverse Ninja Law at least. I am of the opinion that the Inverse Ninja Law sounds cooler than Conservation of Ninjutsu at least.
Interestingly, for all its flaws (and there are many of them), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was the one movie I've seen where they actually kind of subvert this. I'm talking about the warehouse fight scene with Batman. During that fight, the goons actually try to attack Batman at the same time, with Batman having to fight _four_ of them at the same time at one point in the fight. At another point, while Batman is focused on fighting one guy, another one sneaks up behind Batman and shoots him in the back of the head. Of course, Batman's cowl was bulletproof, so it did nothing, but it was a great effort and something that blatantly violated the Conservation of Ninjutsu. I just find it weird that BvS was the movie to actually do this. It was pretty refreshing to see.
Too bad it's hard to see through the smoke of the dumpster fire surrounding it on all sides.
@@flaminyawn Yeah, the rest of the movie wasn't great, but the warehouse scene can be enjoyed by itself without context.
Even on disaster productions, there's usually one part that is just doing their best and either don't care the rest is a disaster, or honestly don't even know.
My main problem with that scene was that Batman really should've used stealth. Not only is he outnumbered, but his mission is to rescue a hostage; what was stopping Luthor's henchmen from holding the hostage at gunpoint to stop Batman (or killing the hostage as it would've been clear from Batman showing up that Batman and Superman failed to kill each other)? But even ignoring the hostage rescue aspect of it, I do think it would've been cooler to see Batman employ stealth and ambushing in that fight.
Another in story reason that I believe could be added, is the fact that great martial arts masters are not that easy to come by, so the bad guy will usually have a surplus of semi-competent mooks rather than masters.
Also, you wouldn't think to send an army of your greatest elites for one person (or small group), at least not the first time
Great point. However, in a Power Rangers- style monster of the week story, however, it would be different. Sure, week 1 the BBEG sends mooks and 1 monster, but when the heroes stop them, they try the same thing next week for 52 episodes, when they should decide to just send the whole army st once.
But again, you have a great point for narrative justification.
Counter point in power rangers on several occasions the villains have just sent the entire army at the heroes only to either win in part 1 and be defeated the next episode or to basically have the invasion trivialized and ignored for the purpose of the plot.
Haha, true.
I like the idea of a magical martial arts setting where people have techniques that let them “power up” or something with their martial arts movements. It could be a way to explain in-universe what people are doing in the background of group action fights, channeling their energy or prepping some stronger attack while their buddy has the hero distracted.
This episode is literrally
"Surrender we have you 4 to 1"
"I like those odds"
For this year’s Halloween video, can you cover the genre defining short stories by H.G. Wells, such as “War of the Worlds”, “The Time Machine”, “the invisible man”, and more (did I forget to mention that he predicted the invention of the nuclear bomb)
I think i missed that bit of the book
I second that
It’s probably a little late to do suggestions for Halloween episodes. They plan those out way down the line.
Legend of Sleepy Hollow would be cool too.
I would love to see a War Of The Worlds, but she probably won't do it
I do like how My Hero Aca handled it when Aizawa took on a huge horde of villains despite being poorly matched for those kinds of fights. He used his power very well, didn't make it obvious who he was targeting, and his power kind of served as giving all the bad guys a weakness, even though Aizawa is the one that *makes* that weakness. He can cancel out their powers. So by strategically switching which powers he prioritized cancelling, he was able to get by on raw skill, and I think that's really cool...
Sounds like the Sixth Ranger being a super badass capable pf taking down the whole good Ranger team while a bad guy before becoming just another ranger when they switch sides.
Easily handwaved by the Evil Sword giving him a power boost.
Ah yes, the Playable Boss Character Dilemma.
@@thesalinator3557 I call it "The Beatrix Effect" after FFIX's Beatrix.
Well even when the six ranger is good they have their first battle by taking down a monster that took out the rest of the team.
Usually, the villains het stronger monsters. Plus the Rangers get strong enough to close the gap.
There is a way to explain (in universe) the "Conservation of Ninjutsu". And that's by bringing up that they already lost the "elite" fighter(s), so now their sending in the B squad that each is much weaker. But of course since they aren't trained to work together this means they end up getting in each others ways. It's pretty much "Boss, your Elite assassin got taken out.", with the boss replying "Well we only have one of those... Send in B squad, their collective power should be more then the Elite assassin."
Also, that's par for the course with an ensemble movie. And given how bad Age of Ultron was, it feels like the movie got rush to completion.
There is a visual novel called "Henchman" where this trope is addressed literally, where you are working as a henchman for a typical supervillain, and in one of the episodes most of his organization is shredded by 1 or 2 heroines, only to be saved by a single woman who isn't a henchman.
I really feel sympathy for those who apply for the job, really; even in fiction. Not everyone is capable of being physically beaten regularly by far stronger opponents. The protagonist said that if he realizes there's no use in a fight, he just lies down because he knows the opponent will easily win, as he pretends to be either collapsed or dead.
*random guy that works for the penguin to make extra money, only to be throat punched and ending with broken arms by a man wearing a bat suit*
I've always loved the 'mook army' thing. There's always that lingering question of just how dangerous a group is going to be in any given setting. The first time anyway. Something I've always wanted to see though is one mook toughing it out. One goon, no different than the others, that just holds his own, even if barely, and reminds the protags that every member of a mook army is still an _individual._
If someone made a story using the nemesis system from Shadow of Mordor
Agreed, and I would extend it to redshirts too. I would love to see a generic redshirt perform a bit better than the others, get noticed, and gradually show up more until eventually they're in the main cast.
One of the few strong moments from the recent Star wars trilogy was a random stormtrooper almost taking out a protagonist in melee. Had they done more of THAT kind of subversion the films would still be popular.
@@commissarcactus1513 The Order of the Stick had two background guards get married and have kid together after we learned their names
Ok, so my favourite application of this trope is in the videogame The Banner Saga, in which combat is a turn-based affair, where both sides take turns moving one of their units at a time. The upshot of this is that both sides get to make the same number of total "moves" with their heroes, no matter how many heroes are on the board- both sides have the same amount of Ninjutsu available to use. This means that if you have six heroes facing off against two enemies, those enemies will get to move three times as often as each of the heroes- they're each a very dangerous threat, but if your same six heroes face twelve enemies, each enemy only gets to move once for every 2 hero moves, making them slow and easy to outmanoeuvre and defeat... And OF COURSE things work like that- it's A SAGA! Of course the more overwhelming odds you face the more heroic you become! That logic completely makes sense within the framing of the narrative. Where else would conservation of heroism be more appropriate than a story that is canonically framed as an oral epic about the deeds of bold heroes facing off against the darkness with only their swords and their wits?
A good watsonian one is that the group of ninjas are just bad ninjas when compared to one master ninja. In this case it’s still 6 ninjas is still basically 6x that of one of those ninjas but that one ninja is just a better ninja.
It’s more that these 5 random goons have the combined strength of one big bad.
Think of it like this your more likely to win a fight against like 7 riddlers than you are one bane.
I love that "concevation of ninjutsu" sounds like the name of a physics equation. Cuz it is.
Some trope names are really cool.
I love how they do it in Daredevil, where the “giant armies” he fights are pretty much just thugs with no training of any kind, so Matt can take them down relatively easily but the one on one fights are always planned by the villains bc this guy specifically has more training than anyone else
He usually takes some hits, too, which only makes him look tougher.
12:20
The MCU has this massive problem of building up the villains as these galactic conquerors with unstoppable armies and then when we actually see them in action they're a bunch of snarling, mindless unarmed naked aliens that even Black Widow and Hawkeye can take down by the dozen without much effort. Like, it's insane how weak every single alien civilization in the MCU actually is. Thanos' army is comprised of a couple thousand monsters and a single spaceship. How was he ever going to realistically wipe out the Earth with that.
tbf, everyone we follow in the movies are the top fighters on earth. Even the mundane ones are supposed to be the most skilled people to ever live. It make sense they would be a able to fight a little.
@@darkpixel1128 It's also quite clear given the way the narrative treats Earth that there's something _special_ about out little blue pebble. Earth just produces top-tier fighters at an extraordinary rate, and also attracts many fighters from abroad as defenders in ways that other planets don't
Feel like pointing out that if I remember correctly, there were more Aliens coming through the Portal. That's why they had to shut the portal down and they took care of the army with the bomb the council sent to blow up New York. It's a problem in the MCU for sure, but I feel like the first Avengers movie did a decent enough job setting up that it didn't matter how many they killed unless they took the portal out of the equation.
My pet peeve is that the first Avengers establishes that world governments are prepared to nuke NYC in case of an alien invasion but no military besides that of Wakanda takes any action at all during any of the following movies. Ultron lifts a piece of Sokovia to the sky? massive alien space ships appear in Africa and begin another invasion? The guy who destroyed half of humanity shows up again, this time with just one ship? I'm just saying, the Infinity stones would survive a nuke but Thanos would not.
I think the root of this problem in the MCU is very simple. The characters in the comics had tons if narative space to truly build up the threat of being these epic unstoppable galactic conquerers, and so this is the hyoe the dialogue of the movies work towards.
But the movies lack the narrative space to show a proper fall, or back an forth, and the heroes obviously must win, so when the climax is reached, the evil army must lose, which leads to it being a paper army and not the galaxy conquering force its supposed to be.
Honestly i think a decent alternative would be to replace the evil army with an elite squad that has the rep of an army. This could allow a much greater focus on the small group of elites vs the heroes and bring with it narrative weight.
Basically i think its primarily a result of not recognizing the intrinsic differences between comics and movies in terms of how they tell a story. One easy to explain difference is what i call narrative space, a song on the radio has 3-5min to tell a story, a show gets 1 season in 20-60min chunks, a movie gets about 3hrs, and a book can go over 500 pages. Each of these media forms is going to be better or worse at telling different types of stories. And this is why when the MCU adapts a comic into a movie it makes some stuff weird if they try and be too true to the source material. (Think of it like painting vs sculpting, both have different limitations that affect just what sort of art you can make/express with them, but a good artist can do alot with their chosen medium)
Pratchett actually eluded to this in his book (Thief of Time)
When a group of men face down one old, seemingly harmless, monk. The they'd better remember rule one.
As in, a group of monks is no problem. One little old monk and you're so dead!
Especially if that one monk was just sweeping dirt
I would love to see one of these fights where something genuinely super important just happens in the background all sneaky like. Sort of like that psychology experiment where you count how many times the basketballs bounce but totally miss the guy in the gorrilla suit that comes into frame and just stands there. That'd make for some really cool rewatch value.
12:42 Holy crap! I was thinking about this scene when the video was starting up! What's good is how we can see the agents sweating, thinking they're outclassed, actually working together to beat Steve, and almost winning.
The 2012 Tmnt series has a fantastic excuse for this: in season two they introduced footnotes, in universe this was because theoretically these bots would be easier to mass produce and more skilled than human soldiers. Out of universe, this gave the animators and fight choreographers alot more freedom, since the lack of blood let the turtles use there sharper weapons more when stabbing and slicing.
This also handelly explains why one footbot is harder to take out than whole group in some scenarios: the bots are programmed to learn as they fight, so you can't use the same move on them twice. This means that the longer it takes for you to destroy one, the harder it will be. In one episode it takes both Casey and Raph pulling out everything they've got just to take out one footbot for about 5 straight minutes, while the other turtles and splinter take out a whole horde, and both make sense.
Red's hand was painfully wiggling in the background (just like a squad of ninjas trying to engage in a fight with a solo hero) when she was forced to draw (or copy and paste) an inordinate number of faceless minions so as to prove her Ninjutsu argument.