Self-Damaging Attack Backfire

Hitmonlee used High Jump Kick!
Hitmonlee's attack missed!
Hitmonlee kept going and crashed!

— Pokémon

Usually, a failed attack simply means that the target gets away with little or no damage. This trope is when it not only wastes your chance to attack and possibly leaves you open for a Counter-Attack, but actively damages you. Whether the attack fails and backfires may be determined by your ability to execute Action Commands or do well enough in a Mini-Game, but it's often up to the Random Number God.

This trope is used to balance powerful attacks and make them riskier to use. If both a successful attack and a backfire are devastating enough, it's a Death or Glory Attack. On the other hand, downplayed Self-Damaging Attack Backfires may still deal significant damage — the important part is that their failure hurts the attacker at least a little.

Self-Damaging Attack Backfire can be confused with a few similar tropes. To qualify for this one, all of the following requirements must be met:

• The attack damages the attacker because it fails, or at least was executed incorrectly. An attack whose use drains the user's HP even (or, in some cases, only) if it's successful is Cast from Hit Points, though they can overlap if the attack has a fixed HP cost and a penalty for failure on top of that. Note that if the attacker is so inexperienced or incompetent that they'll always perform the attack badly and damage themselves, it still counts.
• The failed attack directly hurts the attacker. If it helps the target, it's Attack Backfire. If it merely wastes ammo/mana/whatever, wastes your turn, leaves you open for a Counter-Attack, etc., it's a regular Critical Failure, or just a good old-fashioned miss on your part.
• The risk of the attack backfiring is present regardless of the target's properties and actions. In other words, it could (and in some cases would always) backfire even if the target weren't there. Hurting your feet after jumping on The Spiny is not an example, and neither is a target reflecting your attacks back at you. However, it is a valid example if someone has already e.g. sabotaged your weapon to put you at risk of backfires — that's an invocation of Self-Damaging Attack Backfire. Things like tricking a boss into Ground Pounding glass that covers lava also count — that would still hurt if it weren't done in a failed attempt to hit you.

Sub-Trope of Critical Failure, which covers failed attacks in general, and if Magic Misfire is a possibility, self-damage would overlap that with this trope. Can overlap with Deadly Dodging. Related to Attacking Through Yourself. Compare Hoist by His Own Petard, when the use of a weapon or plan not only backfires, but leads to the user's death or at least defeat. See also the Friendly Fire Index for tropes about those times your attacks accidentally (or "accidentally") hurt your allies instead of (or in addition to) yourself.

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Video game examples:

Adventure Game

• Henry Stickmin Series: In Infiltrating the Airship, when facing Right Hand Man in a Final Fantasy battle, if Henry attempts to use magic, the fire blast will be thrown back at him after RHM placed an Attack Reflector.
• In Pikmin 2, if a Creeping Crysanthemum tries to eat Pikmin but misses, it'll smack itself in the face and fall over for a short time.

Fighting Game

• Super Smash Bros.:
  • Several Final Smashes (such as those of Marth, King K. Rool, and Ridley) start with the user dashing forward at high speeds, stopping when they reach the edge of whatever platform they're standing on (if the Final Smash is initiated while on the ground) or if they run into an enemy. However, on stages where the ground extends to the edge of the screen, or when used in the air without a solid piece of the stage to stop them, the character will keep going until they hit someone or after traveling an extreme distance, which in many cases will result in the character ringing themselves out if they don't hit an enemy.
  • Some side specials, such as Little Mac's Jolt Haymaker in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, send their user flying sideways and render them helpless. Of course, if you mess up and accidentally send yourself flying off the stage with one of them, you're doomed.
  • Pichu (in Melee and Ultimate) is unable to control its electricity, and deals damage to itself with all its electrical attacks, regardless of whether they hit an opponent or not.
  • If Mr. Game & Watch holds up a one during his Judgment attack, he damages himself and only inflicts Scratch Damage on his target, who won't even flinch.
  • The Bullet Bill item can cause this as well, since it is mechanically identical to the abovementioned dashing Final Smashes.

First-Person Shooter

• Borderlands 2: Krieg's "Silence the Voices" skill gives him a massive boost to melee damage, at the cost of also giving his melee attacks a chance to hit himself instead. The self-attack also has a short animation tied to it, rendering Krieg vulnerable for a few seconds when it occurs.
• When you fail a hack in E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy, there is always a slim possibility that your brain will be fried by the firewall, resulting in instant death regardless of how many resurrectors you had. Using dangerous psychic abilities has a chance to drive you insane, kill you, or give you permanent trauma. Excessive use of the medkit before it has time to regenerate can give you tainted medicine (though you get an achievement for killing an ally with this).
• Downplayed in Overwatch; Doomfist's Rocket Punch minimally damages him whenever he hits his target.
• Team Fortress 2:
  • Your team mates are immune to your splash damage. You are not. Rocket Jumping takes advantage of this. If you don't blow yourself up trying.
  • The sentry gun fire is similarly damaging to the building engineer.
  • Scout's Boston Basher has the helpful description of "On Miss: Hit yourself. Idiot." And no, you don't get to escape the bleeding effect it usually has.
• In the Descent franchise, the Fusion Cannon has always worked this way. You can hold down the fire button to charge it up for a more powerful shot, but if you hold it down too long, it starts damaging your ship.
• Doom³: In addition to the standard Splash Damage from the Rocket Launcher, the BFG 9000 not only also has splash damage but can be overloaded and instantly kill you if you charge it up for too long.

MMORPG

• Most weapons have a chance of critical failure in Kingdom of Loathing, which it calls a Fumble. Fumbles cause the character to drop their weapon on (insert body part here) and hurt themselves. (There are a very few weapons which specifically never fumble if you meet some qualification, a few that will always fumble due to your character lacking either any idea how to use them or the appropriate anatomy to do so, and one set of themed Clock Punk gear which can ensure fumbles come with happy accidents ala Inspector Gadget.)
• Priests in World of Warcraft have Shadow Word: Death that's supposed to be their Finishing Move. It deals heavy damage and massive bonus damage on targets below certain hp threshold, but if it fails to kill the target, the caster takes backlash damage equal to the inflicted damage.

MOBA

• Dota 2:
  • Alchemist's Unstable Concoction ability has him whip up an unstable, exploding compound in a vial that he can throw at enemies to damage and stun them. The longer he holds onto the concoction, the more damage it deals and the longer the stun. However, if he doesn't throw it in time, the concoction explodes in his hand, causing him to take the damage and stun instead.
  • Brewmaster's Cinder Brew ability gives afflicted enemies a chance to hit themselves when attacking.

Platform Game

• Banjo-Tooie: Kazooie can do a powerful "Beak Bomb" that can damage enemies and sometimes herself.
• The second boss of Kirby: Squeak Squad, Mrs. Moley, has an attack where she jumps high from the background and then tries to land onto you in the foreground. If she misses you and hits the ground instead, it'll deal a few damage to herself; it's possible for her to kill herself that way if her health is low enough.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • In Super Mario Bros. 3, Bowser tries to use his Ground Pound to defeat Mario. This backfires if Mario can trick him into destroying the floor, which sends him into a Bottomless Pit.
  • In Super Mario Galaxy, Bowser's Ground Pounds hurt him when he performs them over those glass covers that happen to be on top of molten hot liquid.

Role-Playing Game

• In Bug Fables, while attacks normally don't damage the party members upon failure, Vi's Heavy Throw and Kabbu's Boulder Toss, if failed to execute properly, will actually damage them.
• Final Fantasy:
  • In Final Fantasy VI, Setzer's special command, Slot, can roll the combination of 7-7-Bar. When that happens, everyone in your party dies. Game over, man, unless you had Reraise or are exploiting a Good Bad Bug that redirects this effect onto your opponents.
  • This feature carries over to Final Fantasy VII in Cait Sith's Slot Limit Break, with the 7s being replaced by sections of Cait Sith's face.
• Mario & Luigi:
  • Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time features a major enemy who doesn't let you attack at all. However, its attacks mysteriously come back and hit it if you can dodge them. Most other opportunities to counterattack require you to hit projectiles back with a hammer or directly hit/jump on the enemy.
  • The combination of the Risk Badge and Expert Badge in Mario & Luigi: Dream Team gives everyone — including your characters, of course — a 50% chance of taking enough damage to drop to 0 HP.
• Primrose (and anyone with the Dancer job) in Octopath Traveler can use Bewildering Grace, which may have a beneficial effect like dealing damage... or a negative effect like damaging your party. If you're lucky, it'll just be Scratch Damage. If you're unlucky, it'll leave everyone in the party with zero MP and BP and only one HP.
• Persona: In Persona 3 and Persona 4, when rarely going for a regular attack, there is a chance of the character overshooting their attack and stumbling, causing themselves to fall over and either lose their next turn (in vanilla 3 and FES) or be vulnerable to extra damage (in 4 and Persona 3 Portable, in which fallen party members get up on their next turn or when an ally helps them up). In 3, ranged weapons wouldn't cause this, giving them a small extra benefit despite their lower accuracy.
• Pokémon:
  • A Confused Pokémon has a 50% (Gens I-VI) or 33% (Gen VII) of hurting itself instead of executing an attack.
  • The moves Jump Kick and Hi Jump Kick damage the user if they miss. Early generations had the moves grant minor recoil damage upon missing, but come Generation 3, the recoil damage was increased to half the user's maximum health.
• Ruphand: An Apothecary's Adventure: In the outtakes unlocked in the Champion's Guild after completing three quests, the first outtake shows Brill trying to target an enemy with a Pepperflask and instead hitting herself with it, which can never happen in the actual game.
• In the PS3 version of Tales of Vesperia, many of Patty Fleur's arts have a chance of backfiring instead of causing good effects. The results include hitting herself with her own attack, KOing herself instantly, completely emptying the Overlimit gauge, or cutting the entire party's HP and TP in half while also applying an array of bad status effects to them.
• Undertale: The Mad Dummy is defeated by the Player Character homing their attacks on themself.
• Wizardry games have spells that can backfire if person casting them has required skill too low to handle them. Area of effect spells such as Fireball will hit everyone in your party if this happens, so better think twice before trying your luck.
• ZanZarah: The Hidden Portal: If you let a spell charge up for too long (indicated by the screen starting to flash) without unloading it into the enemy, it hits you instead. While at low levels, your main concern is losing half of your hit points that way, at higher levels, spells with nasty side effects are introduced, which also apply to you.

Simulation Game

• In POWER, attack ads have a chance of backfiring and damaging the user's approval instead of the target's approval. The chance of a backfire depends on the user's reputation as a Sleazy Politician, which goes up for each attack ad regardless of its success.

Turn-based Strategy

• Devil weapons (especially the Devil Axe) in Fire Emblem are powerful weapons that boast very high might with little need of training but is offset with a chance of dealing damage to the wielder instead of the opponent. Since the enemy often has less stats than you, it's much more painful if it reverse back to you. The reduced chance of self-infliction is usually based on luck but Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade lowers the devil effect based on level (which will also reset upon class change).

Non-video game examples

Anime & Manga

• In My Hero Academia, a 100% Detroit Smash was always Izuku's final trump card due to its devastating destructive power at the cost of breaking virtually every bone in the arm he uses it in. He's forced to use it against Muscular after all of his other attacks fail, only to gape in horror when Muscular reveals that he tanked the hit, leaving Izuku with two broken arms against a villain able to take a blow on par with All Might's. Izuku is forced to push his limits to utilize a 100% Delaware Detroit Smash with his already broken arm to defeat Muscular at the cost of further scarring and the risk of paralyzing his arms if he does it again.
• In One Piece, Wyper is a strong warrior in his own right. But his secret weapon, the Reject Dial, carries such incredibly destructive power, that it will not only assuredly defeat whoever you target with it, it will also destroy the user, making it a Dying Moment of Awesome or Heroic Sacrifice for anybody willing to resort to one. Wyper successfully survives using it on three separate occasions, but unfortunately, so does his final and most important target.

Comics

• Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale: During the rugby match, Wal throws an uppercut in the scrum, and ends up punching himself. To add insult to injury, the referee tells him that next time he punches himself, he'll be sent off.

Film

• The city destroyers in Independence Day are so named because their main energy weapon is capable of creating a chain reaction effect that can incinerate an entire city in a single shot. However (provided their shields are down), any damage to the firing mechanism during the charging sequence will cause the beam to reverse itself and destroy the ship.
• During the moon battle in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Superman strikes back at Nuclear Man by flying straight into him and bowling him over. Unlucky for Supes, the attack also puts him out of commission, and for longer than it does his foe, letting Nuclear Man quickly gain the upper hand again.

Literature

• The Faraway Paladin: Being interrupted while speaking a Magical Incantation usually causes a Magic Misfire: Gus recounts an incident where a mage blew himself up because he was so furious with his opponent that his incantation turned into Angrish. This can also be Invoked with the spell "Tacere! Os!" (literally "Mouth! Shut!" in dog-Latin) which causes the target's mouth to snap shut, disrupting any spell they were trying to cast.
• In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Due to Ron's broken wand:
  • Ron tries to cast a slug-vomiting spell on Draco Malfoy with it. It backfires, causing Ron to vomit slugs instead.
  • Before the climax, the same happens to Gilderoy Lockhart when he tries to wipe the memories of Ron and Harry Potter.
• In the Fighting Fantasy gamebook Creature of Havoc, you can beat yourself to death against a reinforced prison door in an inescapable loop if you fail to convince the guardsman to release you.
• Princesses of the Pizza Parlor: In Grandmothers and Other Fearsome Encounters, it's mentioned that this can happen if magic is enhanced beyond a regular spell through adding more power to it, when it's not made to handle it, or just casting it with more, heroic, effort, and if it fails, it can damage the user:
  Uncle: Piling up spells like that is dangerous. Adding heroic effort to spells is also dangerous.

Trading Card Games

• In Pokémon, many cards require coin flips, and you sometimes get a negative effect on a tails. An example is Platinum Vigoroth's Reckless Charge, which inflicts 10 recoil damage on a failure (though the enemy still takes 30 damage).

Tabletop Games

• In roleplaying games with a Critical Miss Table, inflicting damage on yourself is a common critical miss effect.
• In Mutants & Masterminds, one of the stated effects for one level of Side Effect is having the negative effect happen on a miss, or if the target succeeds in resisting it.

Webcomic

• In Season 3, Episode 57 of Ask White Pearl and Steven (almost!) anything , when Jasper tries hitting Steven in the head with her crash-helmet, it breaks the helmet and poofs Jasper while Steven is perfectly fine, his gem protecting him from any potential head-trauma. Even with whatever impurities the White Diamond's gem may have had, diamond is one the hardest substances in the universe while gem-weapons are just Hard Light constructs. Since Jasper can crush boulders and poof gems in one attack, apply that kind of force to a nigh-indestructible object and the sheer physics of it would be painful.

Western Animation

• Ben 10: Ben as Heatjaws tries blasting Heatblast's flames at a bat that had been mutated with Heatblast's DNA in an attempt to fight fire with fire. Doing so visibly causes the Ripjaws half of him agony, and when he's done, Heatbat isn't fazed at all.
• In Wile E Coyote And The Roadrunner, this is how Wile E. Coyote gets his comeuppance nine times out of ten. His traps for the Roadrunner always end up getting him instead, even if it goes against the laws of physics (one good example being the Extendo Boxing Glove on a Spring Coil in "Beep, Beep"). The Roadrunner rarely does anything to counter the attack; it mostly doesn't have to.