Basic Trope: Strong women want stronger men.
- Straight: Tough Action Girl Alice develops a crush on Bob, The Big Guy.
- Exaggerated:
- The instant Alice sees Bob, she lays down arms, begs him to marry her, and becomes a housewife.
- Alice falls in love with Bob the instant she sees him punch someone across the room.
- Downplayed:
- Alice prefers men who are even stronger than she is, but only if they also have other positive characteristics, such as kindness.
- Alternatively; Alice prefers men who are stronger than her, but is willing to go out with a guy who is weaker than her if he has a positive characteristic like intelligence or compassion to make up for his lack of strength.
- Alice wants a man who is equal to her in strength.
- Alice wants a man who is at least a Worthy Opponent even if she bests him.
- Justified:
- Tough chick Alice is worried that No Guy Wants an Amazon, but compared to the hulking man-mountain that is Bob, she's positively dainty, so that won't be a problem.
- Alice comes from a society of Amazons who praise strength, and finding a man who can hold his own against them is a rare occurrence.
- Alice doesn't want a boyfriend she could accidentally injure.
- Alice, being an Action Girl, gets into a lot of fights and wants someone who is able to protect her just in case she is unable to do the job herself.
- Alice wants her man to be able to fight alongside her.
- Alice is a Proud Warrior Race Girl whose culture celebrates strength.
- Alice believes in eugenics and wants a man who will father strong children.
- Alice is secretly into bondage.
- Birds of a Feather
- Alice has Super-Strength and she wants a a boyfriend who can survive lovemaking with her.
- Inverted:
- Amazonian Beauty Alice meets small, friendly, energetic Non-Action Guy Bob, and decides he's cute. So she picks him up and carries him off, declaring him her new boyfriend
- Weakness Turns Her On
- No Girl Wants A Barbarian (i.e Bob is a barbarian meathead and amazon Alice doesn't want him for a husband/boyfriend)
- No Guy Wants an Amazon
- Amazon Chaser
- Gender-Inverted: Bob, a big, tough and strong Boisterous Bruiser and Blood Knight, will only consider dating a woman who's as strong as he is if not more. In enters Alice, a Proud Warrior Race Girl.
- Subverted:
- Alice begins obsessing over Bob... Because she resents him for making her feel inferior.
- Bob is a bodybuilder, and Alice is a martial artist; Bob may look stronger, but when it comes to rough-and-tumble, Alice is rougher and tumblier.
- Bob is actually a Butch Lesbian and Alice knew the whole time.
- Bob's muscles are fake and thus, don't actually work. Alice knows this and doesn't care.
- Double Subverted:
- ..At least, that's what she says, but she's just not ready to admit her true feelings.
- Then he learns some martial arts & becomes a better fighter than Alice and made her find him more attractive.
- Alice is also attracted to males who are stronger than her as well as females.
- Alice acts as if she doesn't care to avoid hurting Bob's feelings or looking shallow. She's really disappointed about Bob being weaker than she previously thought.
- Parodied:
- Alice goes from no-nonsense warrior chick to fawning blob of Squee at the mere sight of uber-manly hero Bob.
- The Amazon rainforest wants to marry Bob.
- Amazon’s employees all want to marry Bob.
- Zig Zagged: Alice has an open and obvious crush on Bob because she admires his strength, and she just as publicly looks down on Morris for his presumed weakness, but deep down she cares more for Morris because she feels more comfortable around him and they complement each other's personalities. She refuses to admit this to herself, however.
- Averted: Alice doesn't care how strong Bob is. She's more concerned about how compatible they are personality-wise.
- Enforced: The creators realize that Alice needs a Romantic Interest who is Much Stronger than her.
- Lampshaded: Charlie, who's thin and scrawny, complains that Alice only loves Bob for his muscles.
- Invoked: Alice figures that with Bob's huge ego, he'd be annoyed if she made him feel inferior with her muscles, so she tells him he'll have to work out for a long time before she even considers dating him.
- Exploited: Emperor Evulz is able to induce a Face–Heel Turn in Alice by establishing his superior physicality.
- Defied: Alice refuses to be with any man who's stronger than her.
- Discussed: "Wait, if Alice is already strong, why would she be attracted to Bob's strength?" "She probably figures they would produce stronger children together, more than the sum of the parts and whatnot."
- Conversed: "Oh, of course the writers paired those two up. She's strong, he's strong. Predictable, as always."
- Implied: Each of Alice's love interests has been a male or apparent male with fighting ability, though the exact reason for her attraction is never explained.
- Deconstructed: It turns out that Alice is strong because she's good at tactics and Bob is strong because... He's a pile of meat. Alice quickly dumps Bob to hook up with Morris, The Smart Guy.
- Reconstructed: Morris turns out to be a Badass Bookworm.
- Played For Laughs: The entire Amazon's tribe goes crazy over Bob, so they start a hilariously violent civil war to decide who keeps him, much to Bob's chagrin because he's not interested in women, at all!
- Played For Drama: Alice's Amazonian tribe has a clear rule stating that they cannot mate with someone weaker. Alice is thus forced to either defy her tribe's rules by choosing her One True Love Morris or to break his heart by letting Bob father her children.
Back to All Amazons Want Hercules.
