Ninja: Nah, you're thinking of samurai. Ninja kill silently from the darkness.
Not every character fights like the Knight in Shining Armor. Dirty fighting is a staple of many genres. Its regular appearance can mark a work as more serious, 'gritty' and realistic (not to mention Darker and Edgier, or even worse, Bloodier and Gorier).
There are lots of ways to work more 'resourceful' combatants into scenes and stories, but the key to good dirty fighting is twofold: a willingness on the part of the fighters to use whatever is available to them in combat, and a willingness to use psychological tricks in order to gain the upper hand. Inventive tactics and an ability to improvise are naturally assets. The best examples of series taking this approach to heart will see characters play possum, play head games, and play hardball as soon as things get close. Anything goes in a real fight, after all.
That the contents within are Truth in Television goes without saying.
For dirty fighting without the actual fighting, see Dirty Social Tricks. See also Distraction Tropes.
Tropes include:
- Aerosol Flamethrower
- Agent Provocateur: A covert operative whose job is to incite rebellion, entice defectors or goad the enemy into a foolish action.
- Attack the Injury: Honorable fighters might ignore an injury their opponent has, or refuse to fight them until they're healed. Pragmatic ones exploit the injury to win.
- Booze Flamethrower
- Boulder Bludgeon: Pragmatic fighters may be willing to use rocks as weapons.
- Bludgeoned to Death: Ending a fight as quickly as possible by hitting your opponent's head until they stop moving.
- Bulletproof Human Shield: Using an enemy (or a friend or Innocent Bystander, for really nasty bad guys) as cover against another enemy
- Buried in a Pile of Corpses: Using one or more dead bodies to hide yourself so you can attack
- By the Hair: Pulling (usually long) hair.
- Combat Pragmatist: Someone who does whatever it takes to win a fight, most likely including many of the tricks on this page.
- Confusion Fu: An unorthodox fighting style.
- Conveniently Timed Distraction
- Crippling the Competition: Want to ensure you'll win? Just injure your opponent before the fight's even started!
- Decoy Getaway
- Deliberately Jumping the Gun
- Defensive Feint Trap: Luring an enemy into an ambush by feigning weakness or retreat.
- Devious Daggers: Knives are commonly viewed as the weapon of a dishonorable fighter, as their shorter blade makes it easier to conceal them for a surprise attack, but also less effective in a straight fight.
- Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Cheating, despite having the lead, usually ending in a backfire.
- Exploited Immunity: Taking advantage of your own immunity to something to screw your opponent over badly.
- Faking the Dead
- False Flag Operation
- Five-Aces Cheater
- Go Fetch
- Go for the Eye: The eye gouge is a favored tactic of the more lethal dirty fighter.
- Groin Attack: Hitting someone in the crotch is one of the most iconic (and effective) dirty fighting moves, to the point where "low blow" is practically synonymous with dishonorable combat.
- Hammerspace Hair: When used to hide sharp objects, especially common in Real Life.
- A Handful for an Eye: The time-honored trick of giving your foe an amateur optometry checkup with some nearby dirt or sand.
- Hey, Catch!
- "Hey, You!" Haymaker
- I Am Not Left-Handed: "I was holding back. Now I won't."
- Improvised Weapon: Why limit yourself to your bare hands or whatever weapon you brought with you? A pragmatic fighter won't hesitate to bash you over the head with any item that's within reach.
- In the Back: What could be dirtier than stabbing someone who isn't even looking at you? This is considered the hallmark of a Dirty Coward for a reason.
- I Surrender, Suckers: Lulling your enemies into a false sense of security by pretending to surrender.
- Kick Them While They Are Down: A good guy will stop when their opponent is no longer a threat. A less-good guy won't.
- Knee-capping
- Knows the Ropes: Rope is a time-honored component of traps and arena manipulation.
- Look Behind You: The oldest trick in the book.
- Man Bites Man: If someone bites their opponent, you know that they're either very nasty, or very desperate.
- Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught
- Poison Is Evil: If someone uses poison, you can bet that they're probably not the nicest character in the show.
- Rigged Spectacle Fight: A villain holds a public battle with someone that is tilted in their favor in some way.
- Screw the Rules, They Broke Them First!: When a victim of dirty play retaliates this way
- Screw the Rules, They're Not Real!: A character abandons rules they have no external reason to follow.
- Self-Defense Ruse: Disguising a murder as an act of self-defense.
- Shapeshifter Guilt Trip: The shape-shifting villain transforms into one of the hero's loved ones. The hero hesitates to attack them.
- Standard Female Grab Area
- Talk to the Fist: Smacking (or shooting) somebody mid-speech.
- Many of The Thirty-Six Stratagems qualify.
- Throwing the Distraction
- Trap Master
- Trash Talk: Words can be weapons, and insults in particular can be a surprisingly effective way to manipulate your opponent's mental state if you're dishonorable enough to use them.
- Unnecessary Roughness
- Victory by Endurance: Winning by tiring an enemy out before moving in and taking them down.
- We Need a Distraction and all subtropes
- Weighted Gloves