Basic Trope: A background or minor character suddenly proving himself to be highly skilled in fighting.
- Straight: Bob is an unimpressive-looking math teacher in a small school. When Big Bad Charlatan Charlie and The Hero Amazon Alice choose the school to be their fighting ground, Bob is revealed to have a black belt for judo and helps finish Charlie off.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob is a fat, 90-year-old, monumentally stupid guy who beats up a multiverse-level dark wizard Charlie because the latter's battle with Alice and her friends was too noisy for Bob to watch TV in peace. He even follows it up by threatening Alice and the rest of the cast with the same fate unless they scram.
- Half of the school joins the battle.
- Logical Extreme: Bob, the unassuming math teacher, turns out to be not just highly skilled in fighting, but a master of every martial art known to humankind. He effortlessly takes down Charlie with a display of unparalleled combat prowess, leaving everyone in awe of his abilities.
- Downplayed: Bob throws stones and sticks at Charlie, distracting him enough for Alice to finish him off.
- Charlie's secret weapon depends on electric power, and Bob cuts the wire while Charlie is busy fighting.
- Justified:
- Bob learns to defend himself from childhood so that he wouldn't need to wait for heroes to save him.
- Bob isn't usually much of a fighter, but when the lives of his pupils, or his own kids, or his friends and love interest, or all of the above are in danger, he really snaps.
- Bob has seen heroes fight villains, and that has inspired him.
- Bob is… rather upset about the events of the plot inconveniencing him. The beneficial parts are coincidental.
- Bob was hesitant to step in and help because he is a Shell-Shocked Veteran, but decided the cost of not doing so would be worse.
- Zig-Zagged: At first, Bob appears to be an ordinary bystander, but when he joins the fight, it turns out he's actually a highly skilled fighter. However, as the battle progresses, it becomes evident that his skills are not as impressive as they initially seemed, and he struggles to hold his own against Charlie.
- Subverted:
- Bob tries to fight and fails miserably.
- Bob is revealed to be Alice's mentor Wizard Will in disguise.
- Double Subverted:
- But then Charlie threatens his son...
- However, suddenly Charlie's down in the mud thanks to Diana, who's a genuine bystander and is simply very good in a fistfight.
- Charlie's goons are put down by rent-a-cop Reynard while Wizard Will prioritizes dealing with Charlie, though.
- Parodied:
- Any time Alice fights Charlie, one of the bystanders always turns out to be a Merlin-level wizard who has black belts for all possible kinds of martial arts.
- Alice does a variation of the The War of the Worlds' closing narration: "After all of our armies, magic, martial arts, superpowers and high-tech gadgetry failed, Charlie was defeated by the humblest of all God's creatures… a fat piece of trailer trash with a butcher knife."
- Averted: Every bystander is an Innocent Bystander, nothing more.
- Enforced:
- "The invincible hero is seen as boring nowadays. What the audience wants is heroes from a crowd!"
- In a particular level of the video game Amazon Alice's Adventures, Amazon Alice is meant to have a team with her to deal with a Two-Keyed Lock puzzle but too many of her teammates have been taken out by the time the puzzle is reached. Bob the Badass Bystander is the Doylist way for the game to avoid an Unintentionally Unwinnable situation to allow the puzzle to be solved.
- "Hmm... how do we introduce this new badass character?" "Let's have them suddenly help heroes in their fight!"
- "We need to find a way to make Alice's obsession with getting revenge on Charlie come to nothing." "…how about Charlie getting blown away by an ex-Special Forces guy?" "And how do we add an ex-Special Forces guy into this plot?" "Well… here is the background crowd frame of the climactic fight between Charlie and Alice. See that stocky guy over there standing near the dead cops? How about using him?" "…okay. Sounds interesting so far…"
- A plainclothes officer just ruined the intended shot, but the director decided that his actions were a lot better (and funnier) than what he had planned.
- Lampshaded: "She was just an old lady with a poodle! Where did she even get that knife?!"
- Defied:
- Charlie lures Alice to fight in an empty field with no living beings around.
- One of the first things Charlie does on his confrontation with Alice is to open fire into the crowd surrounding them. Within a few seconds, everybody who isn't dead is running for the hills, leaving them alone.
- Discussed: "He'll hardly fight me in this crowded supermarket. Among all this guys, somebody's bound to be a karate champion or a lieutenant just from the front lines or something."
- Conversed: "See how the camera wanders off towards that young guy in spectacles? I'm betting you he'll suddenly take a knife and rush at Charlie when all hope is lost."
- Played For Laughs: The hero and the villain look around, see that there are no bystanders at all, sit down and cry in unison: "Where's my helpful bystander? WAAAA!"
- Invoked: Bob intentionally reveals his fighting skills to surprise and intimidate Charlie, using his reputation as a meek math teacher to his advantage.
- Exploited: Alice, aware of Bob's hidden fighting abilities, deliberately puts herself in a dangerous situation to provoke him into joining the fight and assist her in defeating Charlie.
- Played for Drama: Bob's sudden display of fighting skills has a significant impact on the overall tone of the scene. The tension and intensity rise as Bob takes on Charlie, highlighting the gravity of the situation and the stakes involved.
- Played for Horror:
- The reveal of Bob's fighting skills takes a dark turn as he unleashes a brutal and merciless assault on Charlie, causing the scene to become unsettling and horrifying.
- Turns out that Bob had a gun because he was there to do a mass shooting and Charlie's rampage got in the way.
- Bob is murderously pissed about this magical nonsense getting in the way of him watching the Super Bowl and he tries to leave none, either hero or villain, alive after he drew first blood with Charlie. And after he's done maiming the shit out of Charlie beyond any recognition, he swiftly sets his eyes on Alice...
- Charlie is not a man who leaves slights unavenged and Bob just did a very serious one. Next time we hear of Bob, it's on the news after Charlie splattered him all over a wall.
- Implied: The aftermath of the fight shows Charlie lying defeated, surrounded by broken objects and the remnants of Bob's martial arts prowess, implying the extent of the battle that took place.
- Deconstructed: Bob's sudden display of fighting skills raises questions about his true identity and background. The characters delve deeper into his past, uncovering a web of secrets and lies that challenge their perceptions of him and the implications of his hidden abilities.
- Reconstructed: After the deconstruction of Bob's character and the revelation of his true identity, he becomes a powerful ally to Alice and her friends. He embraces his skills and uses them to protect those he cares about, ultimately becoming an integral part of the team's success in their battles against evil.
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