Staredown Faceoff

Sizing each other up regardless of actual size.

Patamon: Wanna fight?
Wormmon: Actually, I'd prefer a staring contest.

— Digimon Adventure 02

Whether as a precursor to any actual confrontation or in the midst of it, a tool to intensify a situation is simply to have opposing characters within said situation move in close to each other with unblinking eye contact until they are right in each other's faces.

Not only are they literally not backing down from whatever confrontation is coming with their opponent, they are doing the exact opposite; actively escalating the situation by approaching it, sometimes step by slow step, and very often until they have passed the normal limitations of personal space. At these incredibly close ranges — known as the "kiss or kill" distance in cinematography, because getting this close often ends in fighting or a kiss — not only do either character appear as large and imposing in the opponent's field of view as possible, but there is nearly no time to react to what the other does, leaving the (sometimes Belligerently Sexual-) tension at an apex, and even the slightest break in the impromptu Staring Contest — like a twitching eye or an averted gaze — usually results in the faceoff moving beyond merely a staredown.

Even if the conflict is non-physical in nature and more of a discussion, two characters moving closer invariably causes the argument to heat up, expect shouting to follow, even though there is obviously no need for it with how close the characters have gotten.

Closeups of the characters' faces are common and Lightning Glare might play out as part of this. It may be the precursor to a Pummel Duel or a Sphere of Power Battle Aura clash. If this is done between two beings of vastly different power, and the more powerful entity flinches or maybe even backs down, you have successfully Stared Down C'thulhu.

Super-Trope to the Blade Lock, which facilitates these mid-combat as backing down necessarily leads to getting cut; and to Mirrored Confrontation Shot, for when it is done on posters.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Assassination Classroom: Happens during a baseball game of all things. Early on, Class A counters Class E's bunting strategy by all standing in the infield, not being called out by the biased umpire. Korosensei has Karma mock this favoritism publicly, allowing him and Isogai to perform the same stunt later to avoid a double standard. However, rather than stand a safe distance away, they place themselves only a foot from the batter, Shindo, and stare him down to intimidate him. He quickly panics, unwilling to hurt the other boys, and fails to hit the ball while Karma and Isogai dodge the swing.
• Digimon Adventure 02: Played for laughts in the English dub.
  Patamon: Wanna fight?
  Wormmon: Actually, I'd prefer a staring contest.
• Bungo Stray Dogs: During his debut, Chuuya goes to visit Dazai, while the latter is locked up by the Port Mafia, with the intention to kill him. After a brief fight, he pins Dazai to the wall and holds a knife to his throat, only for Dazai to reveal that killing him would mean betraying the mafia, as they hadn't reached a decision regarding his fate. The two proceed to stare each other down as the executive makes up his mind, with him ultimately losing his nerve and letting Dazai go. Some fans have noticed that Dazai is posed incredibly awkwardly for this scene so Chuuya can reach his eye level, due to their prominent height difference.
• Dragon Ball is very fond of these and often combines them with The Slow Walk. As nearly everyone in the series cast are Ki Manipulators, most use their Ki to create openings where they can land strong melee attacks without much danger to themselves — so when one or more character closes in, it's usually because they believe they have successfully whittled down their opponent to the point where they can take them in a straight-up brawl — and as most of the characters in the show are either Smug Supers or Proud Warrior Race Guys, it's rare to see anyone back down.
  • During the opening of the Cell Games, both Goku and Cell do their best Standard Powerup Poses, after which Goku decides to move in close. There's a tense standoff, before Cell allows Goku to be the one to throw the first punch.
  • Goku, having just unlocked Ultra Instinct, begins a Slow Walk towards Jiren. After Jiren tells his colleagues to stand down, Goku abandons The Slow Walk and flies straight into Jiren's face. In the Rapidfire Fisticuffs that follows, both characters move their arms so fast they are barely animated, leading to the appearance of Jiren And Goku staring each other down in the midst of a flurry of Kung Fu Sonic Booms.
• Durarara!!:
  • In an OVA, Shizuo and Izaya start duking it out all over the city and eventually come stand head-to-head with each other. Naturally, Shizuo takes the opportunity to try punching the other man, who dodges.
  • Masaomi prepares to fight Chikage and the two engage in a stare-down. Just before initiating the brawl, Masaomi grins, believing he can easily win. He quickly finds out he was very, very wrong.
  • Mikado stares Aoba down as an intimidation tactic after stabbing him with a pen while negotiating. This demonstrates he is not really the nice, normal kid he appeared to be and is either suffering from Sanity Slippage or fell off the deep end long ago.
• This happens with Negi and Fate during a confrontation in Negima! Magister Negi Magi. As much as both say they don't want to fight, it's obvious they do and after an extremely tense argument (involving coffee of all things), they eventually end up trading blows.
• Promare: After the initial battle and Lio is safely cuffed, he and Galo engage in a rather intense stare-down. Though, with their massive height difference, Galo is able to hunch over Lio, who has to stand perfectly straight to meet his eyes.
• The Seven Deadly Sins absolutely loves this trope, having used it during every significant confrontation before a fight begins between the protagonists and antagonists. This even occurs in groups!
• Transformers: Cybertron features Starscream and Megatron, both of which have, at this point in the series, absorbed enough Energon to be amongst the two greatest powers in the universe. As they enter their final battle, they get up close and begin to channel their Battle Auras, neither wishing to back down — Even as the expanding Battle Auras literally force them further apart, they continue to struggle closer to each other.

Fan Works

• The Mountain and the Wolf: The Wolf does this often to people he's talking to, both because the only character taller than him is Wun Wun but also because it lets the person he's talking to see that he has wolf fangs in place of human teeth, adding to the intimidation factor.

Films — Animated

• The Lion King: While Simba and Nala are fighting each other in the jungle, the two at one point briefly pause from fighting to stare each other down while growling at each other. After a moment though, Nala ends the staredown by clawing at Simba's mane, briefly covering his eyes, and the fight continues.

Films — Live-Action

• 8 Mile: When it's time for their final rap battle (before they decide who goes first), Jimmy and Papa Doc do this onstage.
• This pose is a hallmark of the Aliens vs. Predator franchise, represented in a scene in the first movie where one of the Predators is face to face growling with the Xenomorph Queen.
• Batman & Robin: Robin and Poison Ivy have one with each other in Ivy's lair, while both of them are pretending it is a romantic Held Gaze between them. Initally staring at each other from across the room after Ivy dramatically reveals herself, Robin slowly makes his way towards her they continue to stare at each other while exchanging flirtations, until Robin lays beside her on her throne. They continue to stare at each other after this with their faces now lingering only a few inches apart from each other. Ivy leans forward even closer to Robin and stares down at him when telling Robin to kiss her and she'll tell him what she and Freeze planned. The screen then gives an Extreme Close-Up of both of them, with Ivy being seen in the foreground of Robin's close-up and Robin in the foreground of Ivy's immediately after, showing just how close the two of them are to each other, and a silent moment passes between them as they stare each other down, both demanding something first before giving the other what they want, until Ivy gives in to Robin's demand first.
• DC Extended Universe: In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Batman and Superman have a staredown before the titular confrontation.
• In L.A. Confidential, Bud White confronts Ed Exley like this after Exley berates White for shooting dead the unarmed man holding Inez Soto hostage, then making it look like White shot in self-defense.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe: The Avengers: Steve Rogers and Tony Stark get into a rather heated argument, getting extremely close to one another in the process, after both uncover S.H.I.E.L.D.'s plans to use HYDRA technology to build energy weapons; on Steve's part, he believes Tony is only pretending to be a hero for the sake of his own vanity, while Tony's resentment of Steve stems from Tony's father constantly comparing Tony to Steve as Tony was growing up. The two would have gone to blows were it not for a brainwashed Clint attacking the helicarrier.
  Steve Rogers: Always a way out. You know, you may not be a threat, but you'd better stop pretending to be a hero.
  Tony Stark: A hero? Like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle.
• In Shrek 2, Shrek goes to the Fairy Godmother's office in her potion factory to ask for help with making Fiona happy. The Fairy Godmother mockingly tells him that Fiona is unhappy because ogres do not live happily ever after, which leads to both quickly getting increasingly confrontational, culminating into an angry stare down contest (until it's interrupted by a factory worker bringing food).

Literature

• Spice and Wolf: Holo confronts a pack of wolves led by another wolf the same size as her own true form, though she's in her human state when she confronts them. She faces the giant wolf and calmly tells him to tell her what he wants. All we hear is a growl as she meets his eyes, and her reply, "Is that really all you have to say. Kids these days are all the same. You all bare your fangs immediately." She continues to meet his eyes, smiling confidently. We do not see what happened, but Holo later tells Lawrence that she "bowed her head", suggesting that she showed contrition to end the conflict peacefully.

Live-Action TV

• Dexter: In season 2, there's the famous and awesome "I own you" scene. Doakes confronts Dexter in his office, so Dexter squares up to Doakes and tells him that whatever he tries, Dexter will always be one step ahead, for one reason: "I own you." He then headbutts Doakes and quickly but calmly walks out into the main office, so when Doakes runs out and attacks him in retaliation it looks totally unprovoked and Doakes looks crazy. An example of this trope being used as a way of getting in position for the attack, and bonus points to Dexter for coming up with all this on the fly.
• Oz had rival gang leaders Schibetta and Adebisi engage in a staredown from their cells, while a bemused Alvarez in turn watches them. Eventually, Adebisi inexplicably starts dancing, apparently just to Troll Schibetta.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation's episode "Sarek" deals with the titular Vulcan whose emotions are bleeding out into his surroundings due to an exotic brain disease, finding new hosts in the people in his vicinity. At one point this leads Picard and Riker to go from talking to the crew on The Bridge to facing each other, voicing irritations and concerns with increasingly louder and louder tone of voice, to the point of shouting, neither backing down before Data (an emotionless artificial lifeform immune to Sarek's influence) snaps them out of it.

Music

• In the video for "Beat It" by Michael Jackson, before the duel begins between the two rival gang leaders, the camera pans over both sides to show them staring at each other in an entire gang vs entire gang faceoff.

Sports

• In combat sports like boxing or Mixed Martial Arts, during the weigh-ins and/or promotional material, the two combatants will often get in close and stare each other down for the press. In the Ultimate Fighting Championship, more than once scraps have broken out at the weigh-ins because of forehead shoves, shoulder bumps, or similar early hits.

Tabletop Games

• The earliest editions of Vampire: The Masquerade had included a social mechanic/feat named "The Facedown", where two vampires would attempt to stare each other down instead of straight-up duking it out. "No words are exchanged, they just glare at each other" (1E, p.155). After initiating a facedown, both parties rolled Charisma + Intimidation against the other's Willpower until one generated a number of successes equal to the other's Wits + 5, at which point the opponent blinked and looked away, admitting defeat (the precise consequences of which depended entirely on the situation where it took place). This mechanic was eliminated as a separate feat in the 1998 Revised Edition and lumped into the basic Intimidation feat ever since.

Web Animation

• Something About has the episode "Storm Eagle's Revenge". It plays out as a Battle of the Bands between two Musical Assassins, to the tune of Storm Eagle's Leitmotif, and midway through the climax both Megaman and Storm Eagle get very close during their duel despite their sound-based weaponry having plenty of range.
• hololive: Gura and Calli do this a lot in the MV for Q.

---