Basic Trope: A fight scene, happening in a bar, where the emphasis is less on fighting skill and more on destruction of furniture.
- Straight: Bob and Alice are at the bar. Charlie flirts with Alice and Bob punches him - unfortunately knocking him into Ted, who is quite angry that Bob spilled his expensive whiskey all over his new suit. Ted throws his glass at Bob, but misses and hits Carol, who throws her beer bottle back at Ted but hits Joe instead, who throws his own bottle...
- Exaggerated:
- The ensuing Bar Brawl erupts outside of the bar becoming a street riot... which somehow becomes an international incident and starts a war when the ambassador hanging out in the corner gets insulted/attacked/raped/murdered/cannibalized/worse.
- The bar is literally demolished to the point where is literally no bar left standing, just a flaming or torn-down husk of what once was a bar.
- The Bar Brawl involves Supernatural Martial Arts and end up damaging the local time-space continuum.
- Downplayed:
- There is a Bar Brawl but it pales in comparison to the war the country the bar is located in happens to be involved in.
- Bob and Charlie have a fist fight, but no one else joins in.
- All of the bar patrons are Boisterous Bruisers, they're not fighting out of anger, just looking for a friendly scrap.
- Justified: Tension is high in the city and people are looking to drown their sorry reality in cheap alcohol. Bars are kegs full of gunpowder.
- Inverted:
- Diner Brawl and Food Fight
- The fight began outside the bar and continues on inside.
- A workshop where woods are made into useful furniture by perfectly sober people.
- A bar comes to sentience and beat up unsuspecting townspeople in her frustration.
- The bar patrons clean up the bar instead of trashing it.
- Subverted:
- Bob and Alice are at the bar. Charlie flirts with Alice and Bob punches him - unfortunately knocking him into Ted, who laughs it off and orders another drink as well as a couple more rounds for the entire room. Everyone realizes how silly they were, calms down, and enjoys the free drinks.
- Two gunslingers are having a heated argument... and solve it by Showdown at High Noon outside the bar, to much relieve of everyone else in the bar.
- Double Subverted:
- ...Only to get even more drunk, wander over to the diner after last call, and start a Diner Brawl.
- Their slingin' end up razing the bar somehow.
- Parodied:
- Bob and Alice are at the bar. Charlie walks up and mentions the weather. The entire bar instantly begins to fight - apparently the one rule of Bad Guy Bar, even written in ALLCAPS on the door, is to "NEVER TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER BECAUSE IT IS BORING!"
- What sounds like a massive fight echoes from what seems to be a Bad Guy Bar - except it's a very peaceful sports bar where everyone's watching a fight on TV.
- There is always a brawl going on at the pub. The bartender doesn't even care anymore.
- Zig Zagged: Bob and Alice are at the bar. Charlie flirts with Alice and Bob punches him. The Bouncer sees this and runs over, which causes the bar patrons who are Bob's friends to attack him, leading to a Bar Brawl. Someone announces the police are on the way, and the fight abruptly ends - only to begin later as a Diner Brawl when Bob's friend sees the bouncer at the diner later on.
- Averted:
- Bob and Alice are at the bar. Charlie flirts with Alice and Bob punches him. The Bouncer sees this and runs over, quickly escorting both out of the bar, knowing them to be troublemakers. Meanwhile, The Bartender gets Ted a new drink and offers some soothing words.
- Bob and Alice are at the bar. Alice sees Charlie walking in, and knowing he and Bob are enemies, finds an excuse to get them out of there.
- Charlie finds Bob before finding anyone else in his band, offers a sincere apology and a chance for Street Rat and Last Dance to work together or otherwise collaborate. They become the best of friends over drinks.
- Enforced: The writers want to add an all out brawl into the movie, and decide that a bar is a good place.
- Lampshaded:
- Bob and Alice are at the bar. Charlie flirts with Alice and Bob punches him - unfortunately knocking him into Ted, who sighs, orders another drink, and asks The Bartender to Pass the Popcorn.
- "Does the fighting in that bar ever stop?"
- The live bar or venue intentionally places rival bands on the bill in hopes of starting fights between them and alleviating the boredom of the normal events of the night. They even publicize the fights for the media and charge more for shows with a rival band lineup.
- The Gunslinger asks The Bartender to get the bounty hunters a round.
- Invoked:
- Bob starts a bar brawl to have a chance to steal a drink.
- The members of Street Rat and Last Dance previously agreed to have a bar brawl as a publicity stunt.
- Exploited:
- Defied:
- Bob and Alice are at the bar. Charlie flirts with Alice and Alice reciprocates. Bob doesn't even feel like fighting, just crying into his drink that his best friend would do such a thing.
- Bob and Charlie are enemies rather than friends, but Bob realizes punching Charlie just wouldn't be worth it, would be below him, and/or Bob is an Actual Pacifist.
- The regulars of the bar make sure that behavior that would lead to fights doesn't happen.
- The Bartender pulls out a pair of brass knuckles and threatens to beat everyone silly with it dare they even THINK of starting some ruckus here. Yes, he literally uses mind reading powers. If someone thinks about brawlin', they get a metal knuckle sandwich.
- Discussed: "Maybe we should have everyone get into a Bar Brawl for the Fight Scene."
- Conversed: Bob and Alice are at home but have a conversation about the number of fights they have seen in bars.
- Implied:
- The characters walk past a bar with the sounds of fighting echoing from it.
- Someone staggers out of a bar looking as if he was just in a fight.
- The bartender goes to the furniture store for "the usual".
- Deconstructed:
- The fight is seen as the Serious Business Real Life violence is generally seen as. Police are called, and they break up the fight and arrest everyone involved. Bob faces felony assault charges, which haunt him for the rest of his life, leaving him unable to find legitimate gainful employment or shelter. Meanwhile, Alice has broken up with him and kicked him out of her apartment for being a felon as well as an angry, Domestic Abuse prone jerkass. Ted meanwhile is wanted because he climbed out the bar's back window and fled from the police. Joe, meanwhile, is in the hospital dying from the brain aneurysm the Grievous Bottley Harm caused him...
- The bands and/or their fans are permanently banned from the bar, possibly extending to even a ban on playing their songs in a form of a Ban on Politics.
- The result of The Gunslinger and the Bounty Hunter having it out in the bar was a massacre, with tens of innocent victims dead from the thrown items and what eventually devolved into crossfire when the guns were brought out - and both having to deal with the consequences of engaging in such violence.
- Reconstructed:
- The police or other authorities arrive, but join the fight as well.
- No one is seriously hurt despite all of the flying fists, feet, bottles, furniture, and everything else, possibly due to luck, possibly due to everyone being too drunk or no one really wanting to seriously harm anyone. There are either no police/authorities, or for some reason they just don't care about a bar brawl where no one was seriously injured or killed.
- Street Rat gets an undeserved reputation for being badass, as does Last Dance, when the most actually badass thing either band has done other than fight is not burn themselves while using their hair straighteners.
- Somehow, the Bounty Hunter and The Gunslinger kept their weapons on safety and properly holstered during the fight (or ejected their ammunition beforehand) and therefore the fight remains a simple Bar Brawl with mere furniture and fists rather than combining Bar Brawl and Blast Out.
- Played For Laughs: Bob comes out of the restroom to see Charlie flirting with Alice. In his drunken stupor, he throws a punch but ends up hitting Ted. Ted turns around and believes a different patron hit him, so the two start fighting. As it turns out, Charlie wasn't flirting with Alice after all due to some goofy misunderstanding. They decide they've had too much to drink and leave while two strangers continue to kick the crap out of each other in the background.
- Played For Drama: Police Procedural, Cop Show, Murder Mystery with the brawl being where someone dies.
- Plot Foundation: The entire point of the Bar Brawl is to make the characters involved look petty, spiteful, and pointlessly violent; or to make them seen as badass and capable fighters even when drunk.
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