Kill the Lights

"Tonight, you will be visited by three spirits! The first will... mess with the lights!"
[flips a light switch on and off rapidly]

— Zorak, Space Ghost Coast to Coast

An event where someone darkens a room before attacking, either to gain some sort of advantage or just to make things scarier. The lights may demonstrate Slow Electricity when they go out.

This could be accomplished any number of ways: shooting out the bulbs, cutting the power to a building, casting a magical shroud of darkness over the area, dousing the hero's torch... Whatever device is used, the end result is the same: the targets have been plunged into darkness leaving them at a distinct disadvantage, and quite possibly terrified. Sometimes a character would wonder if someone forgot to pay the electric bill if this happens. A Dramatic Wind that blows out candles and torches can be substituted in low-tech settings.

Note that this is not about weakness or aversion to light, it's about turning off the lights. The monster might make the lights go out because they hurt it, but being hurt by light is not this in and of itself.

Sometimes overlaps with Nothing Is Scarier when someone (or something) kills the lights as a psychological warfare tactic, leaving the hero(s) staring into the dark for a prolonged stretch wondering where the attack will come from, and what exactly it is that they're fighting.

If playing a Stealth-Based Game, it's a good bet there are game mechanics devoted to doing just that. Might be caused by Casting a Shadow powers, it often leads to Darkness Equals Death, and is followed by Light-Flicker Teleportation, where a character is replaced by the criminal after a light-off. Compare Step into the Blinding Fight, where this darkness is used to blind the darkness's victim's ability to fight in order to gain an advantage, and Monster Closet, which has the criminal appearing out of a seemingly normal wall (which wasn't a wall in first place). Contrast Blinded by the Light, where it's the light that blinds an opponent. See also Lights Out Somebody Dies, in which the lights are shut off in some indoor setting and someone is shown to have been murdered when they come back on.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Initial D: Takumi will sometimes turn off his headlights in the middle of a race (which are always held at night) when overtaking his opponents. This serves to both prevent his opponents from blocking his approach and to freak them the hell out.
• Naruto: the Second Hokage has a technique called Kokuangyo no Jutsu (Bringer of Darkness Technique) that shrouds the target's perception with darkness.
• YuYuHakusho: Younger Toguro does this as part of his transformation into 100% percent of his power in to highlight how powerfully his demon energy affects the environment. Kuwabara even lampshades the occurrence, being unable to see until the transformation is finished.
• Bleach: Kaname Tosen does this as part of his Bankai technique Suzumushi Tsuishiki: Enma Kōrogi which generates a dome that blackens out all light within it's confines as well as nullifies the senses of spiritual energy, sight, sound, and scent. Tosen fittingly calls this his Mumyō aka "No Light" technique.

Comic Books

• In Dark Nights: Metal, this is the Dawnbreaker's modus operandi, as his corrupted Green Lantern ring can promptly "blackout" his surroundings by swallowing all forms of light, including the light from other Lantern Rings. However, clever use of a Lantern Ring can subvert this effect, as shown by Hal Jordan.
• Ghost Rider: Villain Blackout suppresses all light sources in his presence.
• Superman:
  • In Supergirl story The Death of Luthor, the titular villain uses a darkness grenade, which darkens several city blocks, to cover him and his gang up as they rob a bank.
  • Legion of Super-Heroes member Shadow Lass can manipulate darkness and see in the dark, and so often blinds enemies with darkness. Night Girl can also see in the dark, and carries smoke bombs and devices that can shut off lights both to blind enemies and allow her to use her Super-Strength that only works in the dark.
• Star Wars (Marvel 1977) issue #33 has Baron Tagge try to thwart Luke Skywalker's escape from his ship's hangar bay. Tagge takes a lightsaber to a junction box, killing the lights in the hangar, aiming to keep Luke unable to see his adversary, while Tagge's cybernetic visor can see Luke perfectly. It goes much differently than Tagge has planned.

Fan Works

• In the video for Let Me Through, a Five Nights at Freddy's fan song by artist CG5, during the climactic part of the song, Funtime Foxy switches off the power as he prepares to enter the security guard's room. Probably justified in that, in the games, the security guard needs electrical power to defend himself from the animatronics, so Funtime Foxy probably wouldn't have been able to get the security guard without doing that.
• In My Huntsman Academia, Jose Cuervo, a White Fang officer, tries to do this by shutting the power down so he and his subordinates can abuse their Faunus night vision. It's subverted when Ruby uses her Super-Speed to cut off the grunts trying to do this as her teammates rush in.
• Star Wars vs Warhammer 40K:
  • During the 501^st Legion's battle against the Adeptus Mechanicus aboard a captured Separatist dreadnought during the Second Battle of Axum, Ahsoka Tano has to fight a Fulgrite Electro-Priest, who marks the beginning of their duel by slamming his electroleech stave into the floor and absorbing all the electricity in the hallway they were standing in, plunging the entire corridor into darkness as all the lights lose power.
  • At the start of the duel between Anakin Skywalker and a Sister of Silence in Episode 19, the Sister strikes the fluorescent lights illuminating the hallway with her power sword, bathing their segment of the hallway into pitch-black darkness. This was primarily to prevent Anakin from being able to see and pick up his lightsaber after he had dropped his saber on the floor due to the sudden shock of being cut off from the Force as result of the Sister's Anti-Magic field. This also served as a psychological tactic intended to unnerve Anakin and cause him to be more prone to making mistakes out of panic and fear.

Film — Live-Action

• Aliens: When the xenomorphs are preparing to attack, they cut the building's power supply.
  Ripley: They cut the power.
  Watson: What do you mean "they cut the power"? How could they cut the power, man? They're animals!
• Assault on Precinct 13 (1976). No-one is alarmed when the power and phone lines go out because Precinct 13 is being shut down and the utility companies are supposed to cut off service in a few hours anyway. Then a policeman steps outside the building and gets shot dead.
• Blind Fury, being essentially a western remake of Zatoichi, also uses this trope. In the end, our Blind Weaponmaster hero cuts out the lights to fight the final villains in Hollywood Darkness, even whispering to one, "Welcome to my world!"
• The Chronicles of Riddick:
  • In the last act of Pitch Black, the more intelligent of the creatures appear to be trying to do this by attacking those holding light sources.
  • There's a scene in The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) where Riddick is accosted by a group of necromongers, and he puts out two candles with the palms of his hands, plunging the room into darkness. Since Riddick can see in darkness just as easily as in light, he easily defeats the necromongers as they fumble around in the dark.
• Constantine (2005): When the horde of flying demons is approaching the title character and Angela Dodson, all nearby lights (including the streetlights) go out, leaving the main characters in darkness.
• On multiple occasions in Clue, someone turns out the lights at Hill House to facilitate unseen murder.
• The Dark Knight Rises: Batman whips out a new gadget in the form of the ability to turn off the lights. It works on some reporters' cameras, but utterly fails to give Bane pause, given that he grew up in an underground prison and can adapt to the dark just fine.
• Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze: The villainous Captain Seas invites Doc Savage and his Fabulous Five to dinner, only for his waiters to produce guns after the meal and press them to our heroes necks. Seas mockingly tells a member of the Five who's about to light up to enjoy One Last Smoke, but it turns out his cigarette lighter has a laser gun that he uses to shoot out the chandelier, plunging the room into darkness so they can turn on their assassins.
• The Fog (1980):
  • During the attack on the weather station, the ghost fog (or the zombies) cut the building's power supply, causing the man inside to open the door and get killed.
  • Later on the ghost fog enters the town's main generator and shorts it out, cutting off power to the entire area.
• The 1951 British thriller High Treason has Dirty Communists planning to knock out the power generators as a preliminary to a takeover. This is used for An Aesop during the climatic scene.
  Sir Mansfield: In History, as in Nature even, we see that survival depends upon strength. All the culture of Athens didn't prevent the armies of Alexander from...(lights go out) ...from putting out the lights, did it?
  Commander Brennan: (lights come on again) But surely history—and recent history also shows us, Mansfield—that wherever people have known the light, they don't tolerate the dark for very long.
• Jaws. During the shark's nighttime attack on the boat the power supply goes off, leaving the crew in darkness.
  Hooper: He ate the light.
• At the end of Live and Let Die, Tee Hee makes a final attempt to kill Bond and Solitaire on the train. He starts by fusing out the circuit breakers with his Hook Hand. Neither Bond nor Solitaire is alarmed, as they assume the other turned off the lights before the usual post-mission Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring:
  • When Gandalf intimidates Bilbo to convince him to leave the Ring behind, the room darkens and his voice gains a menacing reverberation. He also seems to grow, though he may simply be standing up from a slouch.
    Gandalf: Bilbo Baggins, do not take me for some conjurer of cheap tricks!
  • A similar effect happens during the Council of Elrond when Gandalf breaks up the squabble by reciting the ring couplet in Black Speech, though as this scene is outside, the darkening is less noticeable.
• The Matrix Revolutions. As the Agent Smiths invade the Oracle's building, the lights go out in the hallways.
• Nope: The UFO messes with any electronics in its vicinity, including lights. Subverted, as there is nothing to suggest Jean Jacket is aware of how threatening its EMP powers make it.
• Old People: A not-as-immediate example. When the Old Guy opens the door of the cottage (in which Sanna and Malick are consumating their relatrionship), the candles are blown out by the wind, signifying that he's gonna kill Sanna and Malick.
• What triggers the final battle in Small Soldiers is when the Commandos cut off the electricity to the Abernathy home.
• Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: When the Lonely Hearts Club Band break into Dr. Maxwell's office to retrieve one of Sgt. Pepper's instruments, he turns the lights out for no other reason than to engage in a faux-lightsaber duel with Billy Shears.
• The Terminator goes hunting for Sarah Connor through the precinct station when he notices the electrical closet. The Terminator switches off the power, plunging the building into darkness, a tactic to make it harder for Sarah to escape, and easier for the Terminator to massacre the police opposition given the cyborg has infra-red vision.
• In Ultraviolet (2006), the final villain plunges the room into total darkness, explaining that he can see in the dark. Violet counters by lighting her sword on fire.
• An explicit ability of the main villain of Lights Out (2016). Diana can make lights fail, as she's only visible when the lights are out.
• This is Zatoichi's favorite tactic to start a fight, by taking out the candle and plunging the place in total darkness at night. But it's not as troublesome for the Blind Weaponmaster.
  Zatoichi: Darkness is my ally.

Literature

• The Commissar by Sven Hassel has a Black Comedy scene where an officer goes crazy and starts shooting up the place, so his men try shooting out a lightbulb so he can't see them. It's mentioned that in the movies a single shot would be enough, but 21 automatic weapons firing hundreds of rounds fail to hit the bulb. Then the Old Un sneaks up to the fuse box instead and calmly removes the fuzes.
• In Danny, the Champion of the World: When young Danny is driving a car and hiding from the police, he instinctively switches off the car's lights while he is hiding behind a hedge, and feels quite scared sitting in his dark car.
• In The Dreamside Road, Tucker and the Liberty Corps shut off Nimauk’s electricity and later turn off the lights in the captive rec center, just before their "Scooby-Doo" Hoax begins.
• Justified in The Dresden Files with hobs, faeries that hate light and can generate a sort off magic smokescreen that blocks it.
• As The Famous Five regularly explore dark underground places, there are many occasions when the villain suddenly extinguishes their torch or lantern, plunging everything into darkness. The Five also regularly "snap off their torches" to hide in the dark.
• The Fionavar Tapestry: When the shapeshifting demigod Galadan ambushes Paul and Jennifer on Earth, he smothers the room in complete darkness with a gesture and gloats that he can see in the dark. They immediately retreat via Dimensional Travel, knowing they wouldn't stand a chance against him.
• In The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, Thor uses his powers to completely black out Kate's entire neighborhood in order to get her attention, inadvertently terrifying her in the process.
• A non-villainous example occurs early in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone when Dumbledore turns off all the streetlights on Privet Drive with his Put-Outer — later known as the Deluminator — so he can deliver Harry to his relatives without being seen by Muggles.
• In The Hobbit, the elves of Mirkwood do this regularly. Stepping too close to one of their feasts results in the flames of the fire and torches being snuffed out in an instant, and the elves vanishing in the chaos to resume their feast elsewhere, as well as the unlucky person who triggered this falling asleep so the elves can pick them up for questioning later.
• In James and the Giant Peach, the heroes inside the peach get their light from the glow-worm. When the peach makes its epic descent by rolling down a steep hill with the characters inside, something goes wrong with the glow-worm's light, making things doubly chaotic. Later, the glow-worm cannot provide light because the cloudmen have "broken her bulb" with giant hailstones.
• One of the preferred tactics of Vince in the later years of Super Powereds is to draw in all the light of an area, stopping even night-vision while allowing himself some level of sight. Several times, he combines it with a flash of light immediately after everyone has adjusted to the dark, making the light even more effective.
• The Silence of the Lambs: When Clarice Starling is hunting Buffalo Bill in his house, he kills the power and leaves her in darkness. He then dons his Night-Vision Goggles and The Hunter Becomes the Hunted.

Live-Action TV

• Babylon 5: When Commander Sinclair awakens to find the station completely abandoned, save one other, he goes to find out what's going on, only to have the lights start shutting off right before he's confronted by the one responsible.
• Chernobyl: Three men are sent into a highly radioactive reactor building to drain the water from it, in order to stop it from triggering a disastrous explosion. Their flashlights all go out thanks to the radiation before they can finish, leading to a Cliffhanger. This is Truth in Television - they really did have to finish the mission in complete darkness, though in the next episode they're shown using hand-pumped backup flashlights.
• Deadliest Warrior: During the Spetsnaz vs. Green Berets battle, the last Spetsnaz shoots out the lights to throw off the Green Beret following him.
• Doctor Who:
  • The Weeping Angels can drain power from lightbulbs. Justified, since their natural defence mechanism means they Can't Move While Being Watched, so if you can't see them...
  • The Vashta Nerada are Living Shadows. As such, when they advance in large numbers they blot out all light sources in their way, presenting the image of a spreading darkness creeping towards their prey.
  • In "The Bells of Saint John", the bad guys, who can hack anything, plunge all of London into a blackout, except for the street that the Doctor and Clara are on. After a moment of confusion, the Doctor realises this is to provide an easy target for the oncoming plane that has also been hacked.
• Arya uses this in Game of Thrones, when she is wounded and cornered by the Waif. It works for her because she was until recently blinded, and was training to fight while blind. Her opponent has no such experience, and is suddenly at a massive disadvantage.
• In Get Smart, Hymie the robot (played by Creator/Richard Gautier) took orders literally. Once he was told to "kill the lights." Hymie obligingly took out his pistol and shot the overhead lights.
• Hannibal: When Beverly finds Hannibal's Torture Cellar and realizes the truth about him, Hannibal quickly turns the lights off before lunging for the kill. It's a tactical decision, since Beverly has a gun but Hannibal knows the room's layout, and it lets him kill her.
• In Jekyll, the eponymous Superpowered Evil Side draws from nearby electrical sources to power his transformation. As such, when Dr. Jackman's in a room and the lights flicker and go dark, it's a sign that the psychopath is about to show himself.
• The titular detective in an episode of Monk fights a killer who strikes during power outages with a pair of night-vision goggles. When the police come in and turn on the lights, he demands they turn the lights back out because he is winning.
• In the episode "Say Again Your Last" of SEAL Team, Bravo Team infiltrates a university in Mumbai that's under siege by Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists. To rescue the students and extract them safely, they inform Mumbai Police to switch off the lights from the outside. With this and the use of night vision goggles, they were able to take out the terrorists since they can't see and the team was also using suppressed rifles.
• Happens several times in Teen Wolf, in which any supernatural entity — the alpha, the Kanima, etcetera — seems to have the ability to turn off the lights in order to freak out whichever character they're targeting at the moment.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • The Ravenloft adventure Adam's Wrath: While the PCs are infiltrating the underground caves, Adam will touch the luminescent fungus that provides the only light in the area. When he does this, the light will immediately turn off throughout the area, leaving the PCs in darkness. Adam knows the area much better than the PCs and will take less of a penalty while fighting in darkness than the PCs will.
  • The 5^th Edition Warlock Character Class can gain both the ability to create magical darkness and the ability to see clearly in magical darkness, making this a popular tactic for them to put their enemies at a disadvantage. The Shadow Sorcerer archetype is also capable of pulling this off, although unlike the warlock, they can only see in their own magical darkness.
• Beast: The Primordial: the fittingly name Death of the Light Atavism allows a Beast to do this, shutting down all the lights in a given area. This combos especially well for Beasts whose Lairs are dimly lit as an innate trait, because they can superimpose it over reality right after and drag everyone present into the nightmare.

Video Games

• 3:00 AM at The Krusty Krab: The Slasher's presence is indicated by flickering lights in whichever room he's in.
• The Darkness: At the end of the game, when the Darkness becomes superpowered by a solar eclipse, it gains the ability to shatter any lightbulbs it gets close to by sheer force of will.
• The ultimate skill of the Succubus class in Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories is called 'Nightmare', and it involves surrounding the enemy with darkness and launch an unseen beatdown.
• Picking up the blue key in Doom's second map extinguishes all the lights in the room, and opens a Monster Closet full of imps. The imps are as accurate with their fireballs as ever; the player character, not so much.
• Happens in a few James Bond video games. In the first level of Agent Under Fire, there's a greenhouse area that goes dark, and a henchman even says "KILL THE LIGHTS!!"
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • In Kingdom Hearts, Ansem the Seeker of Darkness can nullify any light in his presence during his boss fights to fight his enemies in a black landless void.
  • In Kingdom Hearts II, the Illuminator Heartless assists Captain Barbossa by shrouding the area in darkness. This not only conceals them, but makes Barbossa invincible because he can only be harmed in the moonlight. The Illuminator has to be killed first to lift the darkness and make Barbossa vulnerable.
  • In Kingdom Hearts III, a Heartless boss called Sköll is based on the Norse Mythology of a wolf chasing the sun to eat it. Sköll intends to eat all light in worlds starting with Arendelle, and plunges the party into a void without light to crush them with darkness. It makes sense, as Sköll is actually Prince Hans, whose failure to conquer Arendelle, ruled by two Princesses of Heart, results in him becoming an Omnicidal Maniac.
• League of Legends: Nocturne's ultimate "Paranoia" turns the whole map dark blocking the enemy team's sight of their enemies and each other for 4 seconds. During this time Nocturne can choose one of the enemies and launch himself at him/her, attacking from the darkness.
• Ganondorf, from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, drains all the light out of the room when casting his evil magic. To the viewer, this almost silhouettes Ganondorf in darkness.
• Minecraft: When the Warden is nearby, it inflicts the Darkness status effect on players, making it impossible to see more than a few blocks in front of you, regardless of how bright it is. Sculk Shriekers apply the same effect when triggered.
• Ōkami: Yami has the ability to plunge the whole battlefield into darkness, draining the player of all of their celestial power. The inverse works, however, if you shine light onto the battlefield to Yami, draining it of its energy.
• A heroic variant in the first Covert Front, spoken in German. Secret agent Kara tells her driver to turn the car's headlights off when approaching Karl Von Toten's mansion.
• Psychonauts: The Den Mother boss in the Milkman Conspiracy threatens to pluck out your eyes, only to find out that that's what your goggles are for. So she turns out the lights and makes you fight in the dark.
• Quake features an area in the first level where picking up the Nailgun darkens the light, then some possessed soldiers appear to gun the player character out.
• River City Girls: The song "Bully" mentions killing the lights before a fight:
  Kill the lights, gonna fight, don't you hassle me
  on this ride.
  Feel the spite, won't play nice, don't you bully me,
  You'll want to run and hide.
• In the Splinter Cell franchise, this is a tactic that can be used by Sam Fisher by using his small arms to shoot out anything that emits light ranging from light bulbs to the lighting sign in order to reduce chances of him being caught out in the open. On the other hand, this can be used by Sam to sneak up on an enemy and grab them from the side or from the back.
• A heroic (well, anti-heroic) version in the Thief series, in which arguably the most useful tools in Garrett's arsenal are his Water Arrows, which he uses to douse torches and lamps, thus creating shadows for him to sneak about in.
• Unreal series:
  • Unreal: after Prisoner 849 disables the force field to enter the Rrajigar Mine, they have to return from where they came from, and at a turn, two barriers rise up and the lights start to turn off one by one. A few seconds after everything goes dark, the alarm lights turn on, a Monster Closet opens, and you're faced with your first Skaarj Scout.
  • Unreal II: The Awakening features a similar sequence: in the first mission, "Elara V: Sanctuary", John Dalton is going down in an elevator when it suddenly stops in the middle of the trajectory, then the lights go out, and a Light Skaarj falls from above, damaging the counterweights and sending Dalton plummeting to the lower floor.
• Balanar the Night Stalker of Dota 2, as his title implies, is most powerful at night, where he gains additional movement and attack speed and his abilities are much stronger. Albeit not helpless, he is not as fearsome during the day... but once he gets access to his ultimate Dark Ascension, he can plunge the entire map in temporary night at any moment (albeit with a long cooldown), additionally gaining flight, bonus damage and a longer vision range on top of bringing all his other abilities to their maximum potential. His Defense of the Ancients incarnation had a similar ability as an ultimate as well.
  It is a humbling sight to see when the mightiest of warriors become afraid of the dark.
• Metro 2033
  • In the entire trilogy, this can done by Artyom and is integral to the games' Optional Stealth. You can snuff out candles and lanterns, and starting on Metro: Last Light and ported into 2033 with the Redux Updated Re Release, unscrew uncovered lightbulbs. Those light sources can also be shot if getting close to them is inviable, though enemies may hear your gunfire and/or notice the light blowing out. In Last Light and on, you can also shut down a large portion of certain rooms' lights by deactivating switchboards.
  • In reverse, you can relight all of these light sources if you need to, which is handy when you venture into dens of Spiderbugs, creatures that thrive in total darkness and burn to death when exposed to bright light. In fact, Spiderbugs are why the Nazis are comfortable with letting Artyom and Pavel escape without giving chase — the Nazi commander simply orders the door to be locked and the spotlights to be shut off.

Visual Novels

• Spirit Hunter: NG:
  • Kubitarou has the ability to drain light from her immediate vicinity - including even the protagonist's flashlight - which helps with her aversion to bright light.
  • In the Screaming Author bad ends, the light from both Akira's flashlight and the paper lanterns in the attic are knocked out by the spirit shortly before it murders one of Akira's companions.

Web Comics

• Parodied in Bob and George. Shadowman's lair is pitch-black, so that when his enemies adjust to the dark, he can flip the lights and destroy their vision.
• In Goblins, Thaco attempts to exploit the fact that he can see in the dark by luring Dellyn into a sewer before fighting him, and blocking off all the manholes so the sewer is pitch black. Dellyn, however, subverts this by casting a spell that provides him with a light source, rendering Thaco's advantage moot.
• The Order of the Stick: The Order are walking through a cave network when they're abruptly plunged into darkness. By the time they work out that, because it overwhelmed Durkon's Innate Night Vision, it must be magical darkness and therefore constrained to a small radius, they've stumbled out of it and into the dragon that cast it.

Web Videos

• Spoofed in Harry Potter With Guns, where instead of using a Deluminator (see Literature, above) Dumbledore just systematically shoots all the lights out with a gun. With a loud gunshot and glass shattering noises each time. So much for subtlety.
• Marble Hornets: The Operator can interfere with electronic equipment. At one point during the filming of the student film, the Operator causes a blackout at Tim's house.
• Stampy's Lovely World: Hit The Target and Veeva Dash attempt this as part of their evil plans in Episode 683, "Darkness", by covering up the entire sky to block out the sunlight over the Lovely World to cause hordes of hostile mobs to spawn. However, they didn't account for the many street lights and torches scattered all over the World, which manage to make the plan far less effective than it would have been if the town wasn't so well-lit.

Western Animation

• The Lich King from Adventure Time somehow does this trope whenever he attempts to make an intimidating speech to his enemies, instantly blackening out his environment with a word.
• In her debut episode, Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender fights against seven powerful Earthbenders all on her own. She takes out several of them by conjuring up a huge cloud of dirt. Because of her Disability Superpower that allows her to see by sensing vibrations in the ground, she could "see" them, but they couldn't see her.
• Invader Zim has Zim do this in “Dark Harvest” after he steals Torque Smacky’s lungs and prepares to do the same to Dib.
• The Beast from Over the Garden Wall snuffs out all light in the area during the final confrontation with him. Unusually, instead of preceding an asskicking as it usually does, this is after The Beast is already cornered and his display, while spectacular, is ultimately just a futile and desperate attempt to intimidate Wirt.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Jellyfish Hunter", the lights in SpongeBob's house go out when a blue jellyfish snips the electrical wires.
  SpongeBob: I guess Gary forgot to pay the electric bill.
• In Ultimate Spider-Man (2012), Spider-Man and White Tiger turned off the lights and used night-vision to get an advantage over Taskmaster. Taskmaster boasted that he could easily navigate the room with his Photographic Memory, only to find that the two heroes moved everything in the room after turning off the lights.

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