Basic Trope: A godlike Eldritch Abomination is beaten by comparatively-lowly beings.
- Straight: Bob, your typical somewhat-empowered hero, manages to defeat Cthulhu.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob, a weak Muggle, defeats Cthulhu by poking it in the side.
- Bob defeats God.
- Bob defeats Satan.
- Bob kills Azathoth.
- In-Universe: Bob, a weak Muggle, defeats Author Avatar in a way it kills the author beyond the fourth wall.
- Downplayed:
- Bob deals just enough damage to Cthulhu to send it back to R'lyeh... for now.
- Bob expends all of his resources to barely win.
- Bob manages to put up such a good fight against Cthulhu that the latter, though nowhere near actually "beaten", decides he and humanity have earned their right to live and returns to slumber willingly.
- A literal version of Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu.
- Bob is one of the most powerful wizards to ever exist, but he's still greatly outclassed by Cthulhu. He manages to win regardless.
- Justified:
- Lovecraft Lite
- Bob was blessed by other divine beings with the power necessary to defeat Cthulhu. Either that, or Cthulhu was weakened by said divine beings so Bob could stand a chance against him.
- Bob possesses a magical artifact or weapon that allows him to harm Cthulhu.
- Alternately, Bob was an Eldritch Abomination himself.
- Bob claims that: "Anything can be defeated if you hit it hard enough."
- Cthulhu is weaker than Bob.
- Bob is Crazy-Prepared enough to exploit any weakness and shortcoming, and/or has Cthulhu's weakness.
- Because Muggles Do It Better, Cthulhu is killed with ordinary but powerful human weapons.
- In this setting, the rule is "If it bleeds, you can kill it," and Cthulhu bleeds alright.
- Cthulhu has lots of miscellaneous cosmic knowledge and influence, Immortality and a higher place on the cosmic hierarchy, but nothing that technically protects him from getting beaten up by Bob.
- Cthulhu has a Logical Weakness that Bob is smart enough to exploit.
- Inverted:
- Cthulhu defeats Bob.
- Bob is Cthulhu, and gets defeated by a lowly peon.
- Morality wise: Bob is evil and C'thulhu is good.
- Subverted:
- Bob thinks he's defeated Cthulhu... nope, it's back, and stronger than before, too.
- Bob launches everything he has at Cthulhu but doesn't make a dent.
- Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu
- It turns out Bob is an even more powerful Eldritch Abomination who can take human form.
- As it turns out, Cthulhu was never really as powerful as it seemed, and was actually extremely weak.
- Cthulhu was holding back.
- Double Subverted:
- Bob defeats Cthulhu again, this time for good.
- Bob hits Cthulhu again harder and defeats him.
- Cthulhu looks unhurt, but then Bob taps him and he keels over.
- Later Cthulhu goes all out, and Bob still beats him.
- Bob was also holding back.
- Parodied:
- Bob's job is officially "Destroyer of God-Like Eldritch Abominations".
- Bob is an exterminator and takes out Cthulhu with a 'roach bomb.
- Bob literally punched out Cthulhu in a boxing match.
- Zig Zagged:
- Bob faces a long sequence of forms of Cthulhu.
- Cthulhu requires a physical form to interact with our plane of existence, however it cannot take all its power along with it, and while he lives on if his physical body is destroyed, defeating him will sap a massive amount of his strength in the process, ensuring he will not be able to return easily.
- Averted: Cthulhu really is invulnerable so Bob never tries.
- Enforced: "We should inspire our readers/viewers to do great things... how about the main character is able to defeat a god?"
- Lampshaded:
- "Oh, are you some kind of super-badass that can even defeat gods?" "Allow me to demonstrate."
- "In strange aeons, even Death may die...but once he's dead, your destruction isn't so hard to wrap my head around!"
- Invoked: Upon hearing that Cthulhu is unbeatable, Bob says "Screw Destiny!" and makes it his mission to defeat it.
- Exploited:
- Bob himself barely believes he just killed Cthulhu, but its pals are eager to avenge their master. Bob uses the fact he just killed Cthulhu against them, by threatening that he will destroy them as well. It works flawlessly. Bonus points if Bob planned it all along.
- Alternatively, Bob inspires courage with his heroic, yet impossible deed and his nearby allies rush at the Eldritch Abominations and either kill them all, or buy Bob enough time to make his escape.
- Defied:
- Cthulhu makes it so Bob never gets the strength to defeat him.
- "Cthulhu? He's invincible! No way am I gonna try and face that thing!"
- Discussed: "We're just ordinary human beings. Do you think we have a chance against Cthulhu?" "Don't know until we've tried!"
- Conversed: "I'm so going to end up going against Cthulhu at the end of this game, aren't I?"
- Deconstructed:
- Bob's victory over Cthulhu gives him a God complex.
- Alternately, Bob broke his arm punching out Cthulhu.
- Cthulhu is the weakest among the Eldritch Abomination pantheon. With him defeated, the whole group change their opinion about humanity from "insignificant" to "must eliminate threat".
- In a case, Bob is just a random man out of a group of superheroes. His unexpected victory elevates him into a Fake Ultimate Hero. The next time someone stronger arrives, he's just treated as a superhero by others and winds up losing.
- Bob fights Cthulhu knowing he's already invulnerable to his attacks.
- Do Not Taunt Cthulhu
- Reconstructed:
- The world still turns out to be a much nicer place without Cthulhu haunting it all the time.
- Bob just punches out every deity that appears after Cthulhu.
- Cthulhu is the weakest among the Eldritch Abomination pantheon. With him defeated, the whole group decide their safest option is to leave humanity alone.
- Bob realizes his defeat and decided to get strong enough to win again upon determination.
- Bob's plan was to distract Cthulhu from what he really uses to destroy him.
- Played For Laughs: After a very large amount of buildup about how strong Cthulhu is, he turns out to be defeated by a comically light punch.
- Played For Horror: A couple of years after Bob punches out Cthulhu, an unrelated series of events reveals that all the other Eldritch Abominations are terrified of humanity, and the entire cosmos now reacts to humans with "run away while screaming".
- Alternatively, with Cthulhu dead, who most other aliens believe him as a Benevolent Abomination, the entire cosmos sees that Humans Are the Real Monsters, and now vast armies of every sapient species the galaxy along with their gods is now in a mad dash to get to human-owned planet, resulting in a Guilt-Free Extermination War. Even worse, this is the very disaster the prophecy was vaguely warning about.
I can't believe, did you really do it? Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?
