Basic Trope: A defender fails to counterattack sufficiently to stop an aggressor.
- Straight: General Drake is hounding Bob. Eventually Bob manages to knock Drake out, but Drake recovers and manages to catch Bob again.
- Exaggerated: Bob barely dazes Drake with his counterattack before he tries to run. Drake shakes it off and continues his pursuit.
- Downplayed: Bob manages to knock out Drake, so Bob pokes his body a few times to make sure he isn't Playing Possum. Fortunately, Drake isn't. Unfortunately, Drake soon recovers and continues to pursue Bob.
- Justified:
- Bob's counter would have taken out a human. Unfortunately, Drake is anything but.
- Bob is from a society that is highly litigious, with a history of Crime of Self-Defense cases, and Lawful Stupidity has made him afraid to hurt Drake sufficiently out of fear that he will get sued for battery.
- Drake is Made of Iron. Bob is not able to hurt Drake, but hitting him once will allow Bob to run away.
- Bob's one attack was to shoot Drake, expecting Instant Death Bullet. Unfortunately, he is Wrong Genre Savvy.
- Drake has an impressive Healing Factor. No matter what Bob does to him, Drake will always get back up eventually.
- Bob is in a Race Against the Clock and doesn't have time to stay and finish off Drake.
- Inverted: Kick Them While They Are Down, No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, There Is No Kill Like Overkill, and also Extreme Mêlée Revenge, in which the pursuer is beaten to a red pulp like the main page says. Needless to say, Drake would've probably surrendered after the 3rd beatdown.
- Subverted:
- Bob starts running away after knocking Drake out, then turns back to ventilate his brainpan.
- Drake initially appears to recover from Bob's attack but later turns out to be fatally wounded and succumbs to his injuries.
- Double Subverted: Except Bob missed and had no time to take another shot, so Drake still lives.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig Zagged: Bob knocks Drake down and turns to run, but spots Drake trying to recover out of the corner of his eye and goes back to beat Drake until he stops moving. Unfortunately, once Bob is out of the scene, Drake undergoes a Finger-Twitching Revival.
- Averted: Bob decapitates Drake... then cuts off the rest of his limbs, shoots his heart multiple times, blows up his body, smothers his remains, and throws the ashes into some acid.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: Bob wants Drake alive, but he wants him to think he survived on his own. So he hits him with a blow that hurts Drake just enough for him to think that Bob genuinely thought he was dead.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: See Inverted.
- Discussed: "Are you sure he's dead? It's not like we're short on bullets here."
- Conversed: "You can always count on slasher victims to be Genre Blind about the killer's durability."
- Deconstructed: Drake catches Bob and kills him.
- Reconstructed: It turns out that Drake only got a dummy that lead him right into Bob's trap.
- Played For Laughs: Drake is crushed by an anvil, (along with a whole lot of random events that just occur) and still manages to recover nicely in time for the next scene.
- Played For Drama:
- Just before he blanks out, Drake mutters how he failed to keep his promise to his sister/lover/friend, thinking he's going to die.
- Bob is relieved and thinks Drake is gone for good. He gets a nasty surprise when he shows up again, and means business.
Don't let up on Once is Not Enough! It'll be back if you don't do a thorough job!
