Aim for the Horn

The real reason he's called "The Batman".

Exactly What It Says on the Tin. An otherwise invincible character (usually one of the bad guys) can be damaged and defeated only by hitting their horns. Another version of this trope is that the whole body can still be damaged just like that of an ordinary enemy, but only hitting the horn will deal massive damage and shorten the boss fight (in Video Games) or the Final Battle. Depending on the setting, this may be a Justified Trope for the following reasons:

• The enemy's magic power is channeled through the horns and breaking them will make the whole body unstable or magically inert.
• The horn is an extremely sensitive part of their body and damage will cause unbearable pain, leaving the enemy exposed to melee attacks from all sides.
• The horn is a valuable Natural Weapon and destroying it will severely hamper the opponent's offense.
• If the creature is intelligent enough to be prideful, losing their horns could weaken their morale enough to distract or enrage them enough that their fighting skill suffers at minimum. In some cases, it can intimidate or shame them into abandoning the fight altogether.
• The horn provides some degree of sensory functions so it being damaged or broken can effectively "blind" the creature.
• Horns can easily serve as handles and a natural point of leverage on most animals with them, so a strong enough grappler can gain control of the animal's movements if they can get a decent grip.
• The horns act as armor to protect a more delicate or vital point on the body and must be destroyed to expose their weakness.
• Breaking the horn will lead to blood loss and life-threatening infections.

This trope is named after Ash Ketchum's memetic quote (which he never actually said).

Sub-Trope of Attack Its Weak Point and Achilles' Heel. Compare Attack the Tail and Off with His Head!.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• In Cross Ange, the first horned dragon the Arzenal crew encounters is defeated when Ange slices off one of its gigantic horns (not so much because it is a vital area, but because it used its horns to project a deadly gravity field that disabled the rest of her squad). As soon as the horn is destroyed, the squad regains its mobility and finishes the dragon off.
• Berserk: Zodd's Apostle form sports a pair of bull horns, one of which is effortlessly cut off by Griffith, causing Zodd to willingly submit to him.
• BNA: Brand New Animal: In the third episode Shirou defeats a rhino beastman by breaking his horn off with his bare hands. He also snaps a deer beastman's antlers off in the first episode.
• Digimon Adventure: (2020):
  • Episode 6: In the team's very first battle with Ogremon in the series, Greymon defeats him by breaking off his horn. This leads to Ogremon and Greymon's rivalry.
  • Episode 26: AlturKabuterimon defeats a WaruSeadramon in melee combat by breaking its horn. Lilymon gets in on the action as well, shooting a MegaSeadramon's horn off.
• Early in Doraemon: Nobita and The Space Heroes when the gang gets their superpowers thanks to Doraemon's Upgrading Light, they test it out on a Not Zilla opponent, with Suneo realizing he can turn his right hand into a drill and using that to rip off the monster's top horn.
• In Mazinger Z, when a Mechanical Beast seems too powerful, Kouji, Sayaka, Prof. Yumi and the rest of the scientists of the Institute examine footage of the battle to try to come up with a strategy or find a weak point. This trope matches Bikong O9's case; its weak point was the horns jutting out of its head.
• Paul's Miraculous Adventure. Big Bad Bel Satan is killed when both his horns are cut off by Paul's yo-yo, Nina's necklace and Pakkun's collar thrown together.
• The Trope Namer is a misquote from the Pokémon: The Original Series episode "Riddle Me This". Since the Ground-type Pokémon Rhydon can't be harmed by electrical attacks, Ash inexplicably tells Pikachu to aim at its foe's horn (and you're absolutely right if that doesn't make any sense at all). Obviously, it works. As often happens in memes, the original source was misquoted and the actual quote from the anime is "The horn!". To add insult to injury, the trope gets defied in regards to the Rhyhorn line, as multiple medias show them using their horn as lightning rods to nullify Electric-moves regardless of their target (e.g. after the introduction of the ability Lightning Rod in Generation III).
• Yaiba. The title character defeats both Orochi and Onimaru by cutting their horns.

Fan Works

• Standard operating procedure when fighting unicorns in the Triptych Continuum. If a dense object makes sharp contact with a lit horn, any energy being channeled will backlash against the unicorn. Minor effects are merely disrupted, moderate spell use winds up injuring the unicorn, and backlashing any working which has them committing everything means an instant, spectacular death. However, unicorns are very aware of this weakness: something which means they'll try to cast at range, dropping their coronas as enemies close in — and hitting an unlit horn does nothing.
  • Daily Equestria Life with Monster Girl further explains that most unicorns will be reluctant to cast if they think there's any chance of having their horns hit — such as, say, if there's a lot of sling stones being launched in their direction. The chance of impact is minimal, but the terror of it is real.

Films — Animated

• How to Train Your Dragon 2: The climactic fight between Drago's Bewilderbeast and Toothless ends when Toothless manages to shear off one of his opponent's massive tusks, causing it to retreat.

Films — Live-Action

• Attack of the Clones: In the final arena battle, Mace narrowly avoids getting trampled by the rampaging, rhino-like Reek, until he sliced off one of the Reek's front tusks using his lightsabre.
• Conan the Destroyer ends with the heroes battling Dagoth the horned god, which Conan finally defeats by ripping Dagoth's forehead horn off. Part of the plot involves Conan finding the Horn of Dagoth so the villains can place it on Dagoth's statue to bring him to life, so there's a magical reason for this trope working.
• Played for Drama in Ridley Scott's Legend (1985). Much to Jack's horror, Big Bad Blix's goblins wound and kill a unicorn by poisoning it and cutting off its horn.
• Ong-Bak 3 has a self-inflicted example: While Tien is battling the Crow Demon on top of a tower, Tien's trusty pet elephant deliberately rams the tower's side, breaking its right tusk on purpose, which it lands pointy-side up. Which allows Tien, defeating his enemy, to drop the Crow Demon on the tusk's pointy side.
• Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny: Satan is defeated when a bolt of his own lightning is reflected off of Jack Black's guitar and strikes one of his own horns, blowing it clean off. Jack grabs the severed horn and recites an incantation that banishes Satan until he's whole again. The ending shows that Jack and Kyle kept the horn and turned it into a bong.
• Zack Snyder's Justice League have Steppenwolf getting one of his horns lasered off by Superman in the final battle. Then the other horn gets snapped when a pissed-off Darkseid steps on Steppenwolf's severed head.

Literature

• The mighty Gargantis from Crypt of the Sorcerer, a fearsome horned monster reared by the dreaded sorceror Razaak, is most vulnerable in its nasal horn. If the Gargantis is frozen by a Rod of Paralysis, severing its horn will kill it.
• In Night World, dragons can be weakened by damaging or removing their horns; when fighting Azhdeha in Witchlight the protagonists aim for his horns to weaken him enough to kill him.
• Sonnie's Edge by Peter F. Hamilton. Sonnie is a remote operator for Khanivore in Beastly Blood Sports. She notes that her opponent Turboraptor has horns on its head to make it look mean, something they avoided when bioengineering Khanivore so their opponent won't have anything to grab onto. Sure enough, she ends the fight by wrapping one of Khanivore's Combat Tentacles around Turboraptor's head with the end gripping a horn, and just rips its head off.

Live-Action TV

• In the late fourth season, most of Angel's cast is fighting Skip and getting hammered. Wesley, though every shot he's taken has bounced off the creature's armor, sees wounds it has suffered: a horn has broken off. He aims for the hole... and thanks to the Million to One Chance, the bullet enters the head. This is lethal even to super-badass demon guys.
• Power Rangers Wild Force: Orgs can be weakened by cutting of their horns. This can prove fatal to high-ranking Orgs who have only one horn as Toxica found out the hard way when Onikage tricked her into letting him cut off her horn. While it allowed her to survive the Sacred Water, it also made it easier for Mandilok to use her as a shield when the Rangers took a shot at him.
• Journey to the West (1996) has Sun Wukong and friends battling a Rhino Demon, who tries using his nasal horn to stab the heroes. Wukong swiftly dodged a horn strike, which comically ends up in Pigsy's anus, and as the Rhino Demon pulls his horn out and turns around, he then receives a blow to the face by Wukong's golden staff. Later on, the Rhino Demon gets arrested by Buddha with a stump on his face.
• The Ultra Series uses this trope a lot, to the point where examples can be placed in a separate sub-page.

Video Games

• Devil's Hunt: The first boss is a Big Red Devil with curved horns. After Desmond discovers his Hulking Out abilities for the first time and defeats it, the Coup de Grâce Cutscene sees Desmond ripping off one of the demon's horns and shoving it through the demon's skull.
• Dino Crisis 2: Despite being the only herbivore in the game, Triceratops happens to be nigh-invulnerable during its boss fight. Fortunately, it can be stunned and eventually brought down by shooting its face (the Dino File points out the nasal horn is the animal's most sensible part). Given its size and steadfastness, it takes a few minutes to finish it off, though.
• While it isn't visible during gameplay, the first boss of Dusty Revenge, an andromorphic bull named Reddo, have his horn snapped off in the cutscene that plays after he's defeated.
• The backstory of Eternity: The Last Unicorn have the titular unicorn, who can bestow immortality to the elves thanks to it's magical horn, losing the appendage to the forces of evil. Not only does this remove immortality among the elves, but also causes them to age faster than normal and die off rapidly, with the game revolving around an Elven heroine's attempts to restore Eternity's horn.
• In Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West, machines that have large horns like the Trampler, Lancehorn, and Plowhorn use them as weapons in combat, so destroying them eliminates some of their attacks. Also, destroying them causes extra damage beyond what simply shooting the machine's body would, and after they've been detached they can be harvested and serve as valuable resources for crafting or trade.
• Kingdom Hearts: The Heartless Behemoth can be defeated only by hitting its central horn, which it would be an easy task if it weren't for the monster's massive size and high health.
• Mega Man Zero. Omega's One-Winged Angel form has the horn of the central head as the main weak spot.
• Monster Eye have a Dual Boss, the rhino beetle and stag beetle duo who attacks you simultaneously. You avoid getting hit by shooting their horns and pincers, and at the battle's conclusion both beetles get their appendages shot off and crippled, at which point they're quickly defeated.
• Monster Hunter: Horns are among the breakable body parts of large monsters. In most cases, the horn is nothing but a body part used in display and defense (as in the case of monsters such as Great Baggis and Diablos). However, many Elder Dragons use their horns to channel their elemental powers and damaging them will lessen the chance of elemental attacks and lower the damage inflicted by the monster. Especially noticeable with Alatreon and Kirin, which rely on their horns to perform most of their attacks. This is further reinforced in Monster Hunter: World with the High Rank Quest involving the Elder Dragon Kulve Taroth, a lizard-like monster with two spiral-shaped horns and a golden armor. The quest is completed only upon breaking the elder dragon's horn.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The first game boss Aquamentus can be killed only by hitting its main horn. Usually a well-placed bomb will help you out.
  • Hyrule Warriors: Ganon takes the form of a giant boar with huge horns growing out of his shoulders. He exposes several weak points throughout the fight. Before defeating him, the horns on his shoulders and one of his tusks must be destroyed.
• Odin Sphere: The dragon Leventhan, after hibernating in the Crystallization Cauldron and absorbing all of Erion's Phozons, becomes a massive serpent. However, careful observation shows that the crown of King Valentine, which was placed on the dragon's head prior to grant the whelp immense power, is now wrapped tight around one of his horns, creating a weak point. Damaging the weak point enough snaps the horn off, and judging from Leventhan's expression afterwards, it was enough to kill the monster. This is also pointed out in-story: when Armageddon begins, Gwendolyn receives a cryptic hint from the blue bird spirit seen throughout her story to "knock down the crown".
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • The Egg Cerberus and Egg Wyvern bosses of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) have a variation where, for some reason, Sonic grabbing their horns will allow him to steer the machines head-first into walls/debris.
  • Downplayed with The Mist and Earth Dragons from Sonic and the Black Knight, as throughout their boss battles they receive damage by attacking their heads, but Sonic defeats them by slashing off their horns at the end.
• Super Paper Mario boss Fracktail (and its prototype Wracktail) can be defeated by hitting their antenna horns.
• The Final Boss of Tecmo Knight is a horned Eldritch Abomination whose final weak point is - you guessed it - it's horn. You'll need to bypass his fireball projectiles, dodge his claw attacks, weaken him enough by hitting his face and exposed heart, and finish him off by using the "grab" button to rip off his front horn which then kills him for good.
• Vindictus has Irukul, which will flinch and give time for free attacks if its tusks get hit, and if enough hits are made, the tusks will break and can be retrieved as an item after the fight.

Webcomics

• One-Punch Man: Suiryu breaks off both of Choze's horns after the latter tries to destroy him using an energy blast from his horns. Their fight continues for a little while before ending in Suiryu's rather swift victory.
• Price For Freedom: Guard Captain Ko'osh is an ogre with a single large horn in the middle of her forehead. During a street battle, a combatant manages to shoot the base of it with a flintlock pistol at point-blank range, blasting it off and knocking her senseless. Even after recovering from the immediate injury she's plagued with headaches because a piece of her skull is missing.

Western Animation

• The season 4 finale of Teen Titans (2003), "The End", has Trigon dishing out a Curb-Stomp Battle on the Titans until Trigon's former dragon, Slade, having formed an Enemy Mine with the heroes, decide to help out by ambushing Trigon with a scythe, slicing away one of his horns and reducing his powers greatly.

Real Life

• Extracting or breaking elephant tusks is as painful as pulling your tooth out with locking pliers. Fortunately, these animals can survive in the wild without their main defense, but it takes at least one year to complete the regrowth.

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