Han Solo: Six, seven, eight of them. The more, the better.
Leia Organa Solo: The more, the better?
Leia Organa Solo: The more, the better?
Han Solo: Yeah, when we get enough of them in here, we can't possibly lose.
Leia Organa Solo: Now I know why you never want to be told the odds. Because you don't know what they mean!
The bigger the bunch, the weaker the monster!
—Raven, Tales of Vesperia
"You wanna fight? There's only one ninja left, and that means I'm death incarnate!"
—House Kubota Assassin, The Order of the Stick
A horde of elite ninjas are useless against a lone opponent, but one dead, rotting and retarded ninja can perform occasional miracles.
Always choose a bigger enemy. It makes him easier to hit.
— Snibril in The Carpet People, Cohen the Barbarian in Interesting Times, etc. etc.... Terry Pratchett likes this one.
"Wow! Do we really suck, or is this guy really THAT DAMN GOOD!?"
— Hertz, Shoot 'Em Up, right after Smith outperforms his entire army of mooks.
"No! There are a hundred of us! GET HIM. What is happening?!"
"Did I hear one of you ask how this glory can be real? I remember...when you stormed my mansion, and you alone cut through my army of ninjas and I kept hearing "He's just one man! He's just one man!" I didn't realize it until then, but that was how I defeated all of your peoples in the 80's. I was just one man. And now I am just one man again! And I am killing you! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
— Frans Rayner Dr. McNinja, invoking the same trope.
"There are three of them! Three! Anything can be killed if you do your damn jobs!"
— Jedore, Mass Effect 2, tempting fate.
Supporting Characters often gang up in the desperately misguided belief that more thugs are somehow more dangerous. You'd think they'd learn, but no amount of evidence seems to be able to persuade them.
"I thought samurai would be fun! But you bore me. You're useless. Even more useless in great numbers."
— Kiga, 13 Assassins
"Bullshit. Can't be. How could 3 men do this?"
—Amir Kaffarov lampshading this trope, Battlefield 3
"You're saying over 400 soldiers have been beaten!? The soldiers aren't that weak, do you expect me to believe that so many have fallen!?"
—A Navy Officer, One Piece
"You know how to fight six men. We can teach you how to engage six hundred."
"It says here the Ninja Rangers defeated, like, 100 space mutants at one time."
— Ethan, Power Rangers: Dino Thunder
Twoflower: When seven men go out to fight an army 100,000 times bigger, there's only one way it can end.
Rincewind: Right. I'm glad you see sense.
Twoflower: They'll win. They've got to. Otherwise the world's just not working properly.
Terry McGinnis: Seven against two. Pretty bad odds.
Bruce Wayne: For them.
— Batman Beyond short.
"Henry Ford would never have built good ninja... you can't just crank them out."
—Gryphon, Street Fighter: Warrior's Legacy
"STOP ATTACKING HIM/HER ONE AT A TIME!"
—Various Mooks, Assassin's Creed Syndicate
"Ah the ninja. Master of stealth, martial arts, and here, even necromantic magic. Put em in a group though... cannon fodder."
—Gwenpool, Edge of Venomverse #2
Goku: Well, Vegeta? I'll take the 500 (Metal Cooler) on the left... you take the 500 on the right...
Vegeta: Screw you! I'll take 501!
Goku: That's the spirit! (The two power up to Super Saiyan... then Jump Cut to the two of them captured) Wow, I can't believe they all kicked you in the dick...
(Vegeta whimpers in pain)
Vegeta: Screw you! I'll take 501!
Goku: That's the spirit! (The two power up to Super Saiyan... then Jump Cut to the two of them captured) Wow, I can't believe they all kicked you in the dick...
(Vegeta whimpers in pain)
—Dragon Ball Z Abridged, "Cooler 2: The Return of Cooler's Revenge"
"Mobs fight sloppy. They rely on the numbers, get overconfident. I'd rather fight an amateur mob than one tough customer who knows what he's doing."
—Frank Castle, The Punisher MAX (so of course then one shows up)
Hubris
Overconfident and careless in the face of a small opposing force. Damage taken is increased.
Overconfident and careless in the face of a small opposing force. Damage taken is increased.
—Final Fantasy XIV status effect
There were five Enlightened to deal with, Hinata included, plus a hundred paladins doing who knows what. This hundred was far more of a threat to us than the twenty thousand members of Falmuth's military—hell, Hinata alone was way worse. That's just the way things worked in this world. Strength in numbers meant nothing against strength brought to loony extremes. No matter how many nameless Mohawk-wearing punks you lined up in a row, they weren't going to beat the Fist of the North Star.
—Rimuru Tempest narrating That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Volume 7
Spy is by far the worst class in the entirety of Class Wars. The entire point of Spy, as the old adage in competitive goes, is not to say "oh wow, I didn't know there was a Spy there", it's to say "oh wow, I didn't know that they had a Spy on their team." Guess what? The match announces that the entire other team will be Spies before you even are able to leave your spawn. The biggest strength of Spy, which is getting picks while people are distracted does not work because no one will ever be distracted because everyone's always trying to get sneaky picks.
—Great Blue, The TF2 Class Wars Tier List
