Defeating a shapeshifter can be a tricky business: if you can't bluff them, trick them, or take advantage of their Kryptonite Factor for an instant win then the only option is pure brute force... and unless you happen to be a shapeshifter yourself, that can be difficult, given that Shapeshifting Heals Wounds. So, for mere mortals pitted against therianthropes, changelings, metamorphs, werefolk, and all manner of other shapeshifters, the only viable method is attrition.
Due to the Rule of Drama, shapeshifters rarely have limitless energy, and sooner or later, they will tire in some fashion. So, mortal combatants will have to slowly wear away at their stamina, often by defeating their viable forms one by one until the shapeshifter is forced to surrender or is killed outright.
The possible variants of this trope are many and varied, though three popular ones exist:
- The Proteus Pin: The attacker has to hold the shapeshifter in place, keeping them pinned down while they struggle to escape in any single form they can think of. In this case, the shapeshifter ultimately wears themself out, allowing the attacker to either defeat or kill them.
- The Chip and Chisel: The combatant has to whittle the shapeshifter down, either up close or at range, gradually inflicting enough damage to overwhelm the shapeshifter's healing factor, wear through their possible shapes, or at the very least, slow them down (a popular choice in chase sequences). This is often used in the case of small groups ambushing the shapeshifter, who can exploit their numbers to keep their opponent confused while they whittle away at the shapeshifter's health a little bit at a time. May overlap with Shape Dies, Shifter Survives.
- The Deliberate Stall: In this case, the shapeshifter is bound by some kind of time limit on their powers, and the combatant just has to stay alive long enough to reach the limit — whereupon the shapeshifter will either revert, collapse, die, or just be forced to retreat.
See also Victory by Endurance. May overlap with the One-Winged Angel and the Sequential Boss in video games.
Contrast Shapeshifter Showdown.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Fushi from To Your Eternity is a completely immortal shapeshifter, capable of regenerating from being turned into a puddle of blood. The only way the Nokkers could defeat him is by 'killing' him multiple times, literally absorbing each shapeshifting form he has, which if done enough times would turn him into a non-sentient form like a stone, or his original form as a marble-like sphere.
Comic Books
- In The Sandman (1989) "The Kindly Ones" arc, the Corinthian tracks down and successfully corners Loki, who at first attempts to trick the Nightmare into leaving him alone by shapeshifting into Dream of the Endless well in advance. However, the Corinthian isn't fooled and begins slowly strangling the trickster into submission; as he does so, Loki frantically shapeshifts into anything that might force the Corinthian to release him — a dragon, a mass of flames, the Corinthian himself, even a child — but his attacker just shrugs off everything and goes on throttling until Loki reverts to his true form and starts begging for his life.
Fan Works
- In Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail, Chloe writes a story about a boy searching for a mysterious creature that can grant wishes, but only if forced. After finally finding it, the boy first has to knock the wish-granter out of the air and then grab it; the wish-granter immediately begins shapeshifting in a desperate attempt to escape the boy's grip, choosing forms like blocks of ice or lead that should force the boy to release it. However, in spite of all these transformations, the boy is able to hold it in place long enough to make his wish.
Film — Animated
- NIMONA (2023): Attempted by the Institute on Nimona. Following the confrontation with Ambrosius, an entire platoon of knights ambushes Nimona with Lightning Guns, leaving her pinned to the ground and wildly shifting between various forms in a frantic attempt to escape the voltage. It's not until she sees Ballister being given a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown that she assumes a form that can overcome the onslaught - namely the Kwispy Dwagon.
Film — Live-Action
- Hercules and the Captive Women eventually pits the eponymous hero against Proteus himself in order to save a woman that the demigod is about to claim as a Human Sacrifice. Proteus attacks Hercules in multiple forms, but given that he's up against Hercules, his opponent is easily able to grapple with each form and toss it aside, forcing Proteus to try again with a new shape — a python, a lion, a vulture, and finally a giant lizard-man. Unlike his mythological counterpart, however, Proteus is given no chance to surrender and confess his secrets: after the demigod is finally wrestled into submission in his lizard-man form, Hercules rips one of his horns off and leaves him to bleed to death.
- In the finale of It (2017), the Loser's Club take on Pennywise all at once for the first time in the story. Unused to his prey fighting back, Pennywise attempts to ward them off by rapidly shapeshifting into the worst fears of whatever kid happens to be closest, but for once, the kids are too angry to be scared and counter each attempt by hitting him with whatever blunt instruments they have on hand. The fight ends with a badly wounded Pennywise reverting to his clown form and retreating deeper into the sewers to recover.
- Late in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the Fantom's chief henchman Dante takes an overdose of Dr Jekyll's formula and transforms into a gigantic muscle-bound behemoth that easily tanks everything Captain Nemo and Mr Hyde can dish out. However, Hyde soon reveals that Dante is burning through his formula at an accelerated rate and will soon change back, so all they have to do is delay him until he returns to normal. Ultimately, Dante ends up getting pinned down by a mountain of rubble when the bombs planted around the facility go off, leaving him trapped until — as the novelization illustrates — he's crushed to death when he finally reverts.
- Downplayed in Terminator 2: Judgment Day: the T-1000 can't be killed by anything the main characters have at hand, given that its polymimetic body quickly regenerates from almost anything. However, it is possible to delay it: in the T-1000's first fight with the T-800, "Uncle Bob" knocks it down with a barrage of shotgun blasts, leaving it temporarily disabled while it regenerates. As such, most of the fight scenes feature Sarah and the T-800 repeatedly pummeling the T-1000 with gunfire, for even though it's effectively Immune to Bullets, the damage slows it down long enough to prevent the robot from getting close enough to use its Shapeshifter Weapon.
Literature
- Animorphs:
- Individuals using the Andalite morphing technology can only remain in morph for two hours, after which they become trapped in the form they've taken. As such, it's not uncommon for villains like Crayak and Taylor to corner the Animorphs in circumstances in which they can't safely demorph and simply wait until desperation forces them to submit to their demands.
- The Animorphs themselves make use of this when Jake gets infested by a Yeerk in "The Capture": because the newly-introduced Temrash will die of starvation if he can't get to a Yeerk Pool within the next three days, he continuously attempts to escape his captors via Jake's morphing abilities... only to be countered each time by a series of traps set up for him by the other Animorphs, each one wearing him down through progressively more dangerous stakes until he's forced to surrender. In one case, he attempts to flee the area as an ant, only to blunder directly into an ant nest and almost gets ripped apart before he can demorph — whereupon he surrenders to the observing Animorphs. This works so well that Temrash ultimately gives up after nearly three days of failures and resigns himself to a slow death by Kandrona starvation.
- Morphing itself heals all injuries but is tiring - early in the series, after demorphing the kids usually hang around as humans for a while and rest, even though re-morphing is usually the more practical option and being kids in odd places leads to trouble several times. As they get more practice they become more willing to power right through into another morph, but whenever they have to do it several times in succession without rest it's painfully exhausting.
- In The Georgics, Aristaeus' search for a reason why his bees are dying eventually leads him to seek answers from Proteus in the traditional fashion, ambushing and seizing the legendary shapeshifter in an attempt to get him to use his prophetic gifts. As per the myths, the old sea god rapidly shifts between the forms of animals, fires, and even a stream of water to escape the hero's grasp, until he finally exhausts himself and is forced to give in to Aristaeus' demands.
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians: In The Titan's Curse, Percy seeks out Nereus for information on the monster that Artemis has been hunting, and it's not long before he's forced to wrestle the answers out of the old sea god as per the original myths. Nereus attempts to shake Percy off by diving into the ocean and transforming into a seal, a killer whale, and even an eel, but unknown to him, he's up against the son of Poseidon, and Percy's Super Not-Drowning Skills mean that Nereus soon tires himself out and is forced to submit.
- Red Dwarf: Last Human features the incarcerated David Lister being given one night with a symbi-morph as a reward for participating in a Suicide Mission the next day. However, the symbi-morph he's assigned, Reketrebn, is one of the few that hasn't been "broken" and rebels at being separated from their current master by turning into a sofa so that the guards can't get it through the door. Instead, the guards batter it into submission with their pronged batons until Reketrebn's forced to shapeshift into something that can withstand the onslaught — and while it's in between forms, the guards take the opportunity to drag it into the room, eventually coercing it into bonding with Lister.
- In many versions of Tam Lin, the only way Janet can save the eponymous character from The Fair Folk is by dragging him off his horse and keeping hold of him until she can break the curse that was placed upon him. The moment she's able to dismount him, Tam Lin begins unwillingly shapeshifting into a wide variety of forms meant to break Janet's hold, from snakes to toads, but Janet refuses to let go. This ends with Tam Lin becoming a red-hot coal — whereupon Janet throws him into a well, breaking the curse and restoring him to human form.
Live-Action TV
- Star Trek: The Original Series: In the episode "Whom Gods Destroy", Garth is impersonating Kirk. Both Kirk and Garth/Kirk are held at phaser-point by Spock, who points out that Garth is undoubtedly spending a great deal of energy to maintain Kirk's form and that he can't do so indefinitely, so all he has to do is wait. Naturally, Kirk and Garth start fighting, so Spock has to take another route to determine which is the real Kirk.
Myths & Religion
- Classical Mythology:
- Minor ocean god and shapeshifter extraordinaire Proteus was capable of foreseeing the future, but refused to share his insights with anyone, instead preferring to live as a hermit on an isolated beach. Anyone wanting to learn from Proteus would have to ambush him during his afternoon nap and wrestle him into submission while he cycled through multiple forms — no easy task, considering Proteus could transform into just about anything including fire and water. However, if a hero could maintain their grip until Proteus finally tired, the sea god would be forced to answer any of the victor's questions.
- Nereus was another shapeshifting god-prophet of the oceans, and though he was commonly depicted as more honorable and honest than Proteus, he would only grant his knowledge to those who could best him in combat. As such, heroes hoping to learn from him — like Heracles, for example — would have to win a wrestling match with him, during which he would attempt to shapeshift out of their grip until they could finally exhaust and best him.
- Thetis, one of Nereus's daughters, was pressed into an Arranged Marriage with the mortal hero Peleus as part of a gambit by Zeus to prevent Thetis from bearing an immortal son that might one day dethrone him. Thetis naturally refused, but Peleus was able to force her into complying by ambushing her while she was asleep and (once again) wrestling her into submission; Thetis attempted to escape by transforming into fire, water, a lioness, and a serpent but ultimately had no choice but to revert and accept the "hero's" hand in marriage. For good measure, Peleus received instructions on how to do this from Proteus, the bride's own nephew, though it's not known if Peleus had to wrestle him for the information as well.
Tabletop Games
- In Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, the key feature of the Druid class is their "wildshape" ability, which allows them to assume the form of an animal of a certain challenge rating. Each time they use it, they get the full HP pool of that animal and revert to the same state they were in when they transformed if it's depleted. This is offset by druids only being able to use it twice per short rest, meaning it's possible to whittle through an enemy druid's forms (or deal enough damage to finish them off before they can assume another).
Video Games
- In the finale of Batman: Arkham City, you're pitted against Clayface, Joker's Body Double and second-in-command. Fortunately, Batman discovers that the giant shapeshifter is vulnerable to the ice grenades Victor Freeze gave him... but even with this on your side, Clayface is so resilient that you have to laboriously chip away at his hit points with dozens upon dozens of grenades until he freezes, allowing you to grab a sword and hack his solidified body to bits. Though Clayface quickly reforms from being frozen and shattered, he shapeshifts more aggressively every time he loses a health bar, until the third iteration, when Batman inflicts so much damage on Clayface that he can't retain consciousness and collapses into inert goop.
- The Necron Lord in Dawn of War is invulnerable while in the shape of the Nightbringer/Deceiver, so killing him requires you to wait for the transformation to end. Unfortunately, the Necron Lord has a self-repair function, so he won't stay down for long.
- The Dragon Age: Origins mission "Lost In Dreams" ends with a massive boss battle with the Sloth Demon that trapped you in the Fade, during which Sloth assumes a different form every time you reduce his health to zero: an ogre, a rage demon, an abomination, a shade, and an arcane horror. Given the dream-specific shapeshifting powers you've unlocked here, it's entirely possible to play this as a Shapeshifter Showdown, but if you've gone to the trouble of rescuing your companions from their nightmares, it can be a simple matter of laboriously chiseling away at Sloth's health and shapes until he finally goes down.
- During his boss battles in Gotham Knights (2022), Clayface seems utterly impossible to permanently damage, as battering down his various clay avatars just allows him to recombine the clay into a new shape. Over the course of the first battle, all the players can do is hammer away at Clayface's various selves until he tires and oozes away through a sewer grating. In the final battle, you finally manage to do some serious damage by luring him into a smelting plant, where the heat makes him brittle and reduces the effectiveness of his shapeshifting powers... but even with that, he still has enough power to grow extra arms and reinforce his body. You have to spend the next few minutes heating him up and chiseling him down until he finally disintegrates into bits of inert clay, allowing the GCPD to seal him up inside several different jars.
- In Knights of the Old Republic, should you accept the Genoharadan contracts, you're eventually tasked with hunting down a shapeshifting assassin by the name of Rulan Prolik. In the ensuing boss battle, you have to chip away at his hitpoints in two of his forms before he flees in the shape of a monkey-like tach — and them hides in an entire troop of the damn things, presumably hoping to recover while you waste precious time trying to find him. Unfortunately for Rulan, this mission is Dark Side-coded, so you can just kill all of them.
- Despite not being a shapeshifter to the proper extent, Labyrinth of Touhou's fight against bonus boss Rinnosuke uses Chip-and-Chisel type 2. They have numerous forms in which they fight you, can switch between them at the drop of a hat, and accomplishing this is more difficult than one would initially expect - when the boss is in one form, the others regain HP, plunging the fight into Marathon Boss territory.
- The final boss of The Legend of Dragoon, Melbu Frahma, uses the divine power he's obtained to go One-Winged Angel. Every time you manage to chip off roughly a quarter of his HP, he shifts to a different form to put you off-balance, forcing you to wear through that form as well. For good measure, when you finally manage to strike down his penultimate form, the ending cutscene reveals that his true final form looks skeletal and decayed as if he's having trouble holding himself together — right before a single blast from the Divine Dragoon annihilates it and the Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
- In Pokémon, Wishiwashi is a tiny, weak, sardine-like Pokémon. However, its "Schooling" ability allows it to begin battles in its hulking, powerful "School Form" starting at level 20 with stats on par with legendaries. If brought down below 25% health, however, it reverts to its weak "Solo" form.
- In Prop Hunt, the Hunters have to track down and kill members of the opposing team disguised as objects across the level. Players disguised as bigger objects have more hit points, requiring more gunfire to kill, though they aren't quite as maneuverable as the smaller ones... but the Hunters lose hit points for every missed shot, so each bullet in this chip and chisel fight has to be very carefully measured — hence why using the grenade launcher is so risky. For good measure, it's not uncommon for fleeing players to frantically shift from shape to shape in a desperate attempt to find a new disguise or defence before the hunters kill them.
Web Animation
- In Fandeltales: The Cursed Prince (WARNING: NSFW) by Newgrounds +18 artist Derpixon, the eponymous hero is captured by Herzha, a shapeshifting she-devil out to consume his life-force via sex. Taking a human form, she at first appears to have the upper hand... but far from being reduced to a desiccated husk like all her other victims, Prince Amont has enough stamina to literally end up on top. Surprised and impressed, Herzha shapeshifts into a huge variety of forms — humans, Bat People, orcs, forest nymphs, and even Seductive Spider-women — in an attempt to best her prey, while Amont continues screwing her in the hope that he can eventually grab a knife on the nearby table. At the end of this marathon shagging session, Amont's stamina wins out, resulting in Herzha suffering a Shapeshifter Swan Song at the moment of climax and falling asleep — allowing Amont to finally go for the knife. Unfortunately, Herzha planned ahead and marked him with a supernatural tattoo that prevents him from killing her or disobeying her orders. However, she promises to remove it... once he's finished satisfying her demands.
Web Original
- SCP Foundation: SCP-7955 ("The Ailing Child Of Proteus")
possesses impressive shapeshifting powers but is normally too shy and retiring to even attempt combat. However, 7955 is also suffering from dementia and can occasionally turn violent in moments of confusion. As such, standard procedure for Foundation security is to pin him to the ground with nets and polearms, prompting him to wildly transform in a panic until he wears himself out, allowing security to carry the exhausted shapeshifter back to his cell.
Western Animation
- Adventure Time has Jake meet his real father Warren Ampersand in "Jake the Starchild" where it's revealed that he sires children just to steal their life force and prolong his life. He does so by conning a belt onto them and tricking them into performing many feats of shapeshifting, the belt transmitting their life energy whenever they use their powers to him through a belt of his own. Jake manages to thwart him by switching the belts and having him perform shapeshifting tricks as a last request.
- In the Ben 10 franchise, Ben has the ability to turn into multiple powerful alien species thanks to the Omnitrix. However, Ben can only remain transformed for a limited period of time, and an opponent could theoretically keep him fighting or restrained until the transformation gives out, returning him to a considerably weaker human form.
- Samurai Jack: Most battles with Aku come down to this. The sword helps wear him down, but Jack has repeatedly proved he has more stamina than him as well.
