A simple yet effective visual. When a character is defeated in battle, they will remain standing for a moment before falling to their knees, then landing face first on the ground. This is done to make a character's defeat appear to be much larger and more impressive than it might have been otherwise. It may be shot at a worm's eye view to better express that a mighty foe has been bested. The character could either be dead, or just knocked out. There's also a chance that the character catches their fall and stands on all fours with their head facing the ground.
In real life, this is very unlikely to happen. If someone is knocked unconscious while standing up, they will most likely fall on their side, or just hit the floor without their knees catching their weight. But this wouldn't look as dramatic so this fact is often ignored.
Sub-Trope of Vertical Power Play. Compare Twisted-Knee Collapse.
Examples:
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Films — Animated
- Barnyard: Ben takes on Dag and his coyote pack by himself to protect the farm. After driving them off, the injuries Ben received were fatal enough to make him collapse on his knees.
- Dofus Book 1: Julith: Bakara catches her fall from her knees after being released from Julith's grip by Kerubim.
Films — Live Action
- Avatar: Quaritch's mech falls to its knees and onto the ground as he is dying from getting hit by arrows.
- Black Panther (2018): When Killmonger stabs Zuri out of revenge, he lands on his knees, then falls to the floor.
- Played for laughs in Clue. Wadsworth the butler starts shouting at the guests after Mr. Boddy is found dead (again). Unfortunately, he doesn't notice the Candlestick balanced on the doorframe above his head until it falls and knocks him out mid-sentence. He crumples to his knees before landing on his face.
- The Fellowship of the Ring: Boromir valiantly averts this trope when defending Merry and Pippin from the Uruk-Hai; Lurtz hits him with two arrows, knocking him to his knees twice, but both times he powers up and keeps fighting. When a third arrow hits him in the chest, Boromir finally loses his strength and falls to his knees, helplessly watching as the hobbits are captured. Even then, he remains kneeling instead of falling over.
- Star Wars: The Phantom Menace: Qui Gon Jinn falls to his knees after he is impaled by Darth Maul.
- Transformers: Megatron falls to the ground like this after he is defeated. However, he lands on his back.
Live-Action TV
- Power Rangers: Dino Thunder: The Big Bad Mesogog falls to the ground from his knees as his fortress collapses around him.
Video Games
- Age of Empires III: This is how Pierre Beaumont dies at the end of Steel, the third and final chapter. Amelia Black sees his uncle Kanyenke's leg being trapped in a rock; unbeknownst to them, Beaumont was trapped among some rubble, right in the arc above them; Amelia manages to save Kanyenke, catches her rifle and shots at Beaumont, who kneels and falls quickly.
- ANNO: Mutationem: In the final fight, Sigrid uses her powers to expel all the malevolence from within C's body, he immediately falls to his knees and collapses, followed by the emergence of his One-Winged Angel form; Nidhogg.
- BioShock Infinite. When a Handyman or a Motorized Patriot is killed, it falls to its knees and then face down on the ground.
- The dying animation for most entities in City of Heroes, though it's rarely seen as NPCs tend to ragdoll when defeated, meaning it's usually only seen for the player.
- Doomguy dies after falling to the ground from his knees in the original Doom games unless he's gibbed.
- In Dynasty Warriors 3 and 5, when an enemy officer is defeated and the plot dictates their death (usually the final time they appear in the chosen player character's story), there is a brief cutscene of them falling to their knees while letting out some last words.
- Fable: The Summoners — powerful Animated Armor Magic Knights — fall to their knees and face the sky when defeated. It gives the player a moment to get clear before they explode.
- If the player is defeated in Final Fantasy XIV, they'll fall to their knees and then fall backwards onto their backs. Human enemies also use the same animation when they're slain and it's also used on characters that die in a cutscene.
- In the penultimate level of Journey (2012), after struggling through the bitter cold and violent blizzard of the Mountain, the Travelers finally collapse in exhaustion, falling first to their knees, then face-planting into the snow, as the screen goes white. They are then, however, resurrected by the Ancients' spirits and who grant them the power to escape the blizzard and to reach the Summit.
- Left 4 Dead: The Tank dies dramatically this way once killed.
- After defeating Ganondorf in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, he sinks to his knees and collapses. He comes moments back later to turn into Ganon, though.
- Mortal Kombat 9: Shao Kahn's first defeat halfway through the story mode has him being given a hole in his chest courtesy of Liu Kang's flaming fist. He kneels, spits some blood, and falls.
- In the Flash Web Game Motherload, when you defeat the Final Boss Satan, he falls to his knees, then flat on his face.
- In Persona 4, if the player fails to rescue a victim before the deadline, then upon being informed the victim has been found dead, the protagonist will drop his phone, and fall to one of his knees in despair. He doesn't go all the way to fall face first though.
- Ratchet: Deadlocked: Your character's death animation shows you falling to your knees.
- The SNES video game of Ultraman: Towards the Future has Ultraman fall on his knees and then on his face when he runs out of health or time. Get used to seeing it a lot.
Western Animation
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: Aang falls to his knees on the floor after he is knocked out by Azula in the episode "The Drill". He recovers shortly afterwards.
- In the final battle between Obi Wan and Darth Maul in Star Wars Rebels, Maul, after being cut down by Obi Wan, falls on one knee. He would have landed on the ground had Obi Wan not caught him.
- Transformers: Prime: Dreadwing falls to his knees after Megatron shoots him in the back for defying his orders.
