Quotes / The Worf Effect

"Please tell me he did not just take out our big gun in three seconds flat."

— Eduardo Jr., Young Justice (2010), "The Hunt"

"I think as long as we avoid being the tough-looking guys who get knocked out in the first round to show how strong the champion is, we'll be fine."

— Roy Greenhilt, The Order of the Stick

"You do not beat Superfly Jimmy Snuka in the middle of the ring at the Garden unless you are somebody!"

— Bobby The Brain Heenan on The Undertaker, Madison Square Garden 1991

Storm: (looking at Juggernaut lying unconscious and defeated in a crater on the ground) Oh... this is bad.
Wolverine: Yeah. Juggernaut.
Iceman: Wait a minute! Juggernaut as in The Unstoppable Juggernaut? The totally invulnerable Juggernaut!?
Beast: That'd be the one.
Shadowcat: So what could do this to him?
(Giant red energy Kaiju-looking thing roars and bursts out of a building)
Shadowcat: ...Never mind.

—Wolverine and the X-Men (2009) - Episode 13

Vegeta: HOW?! How are you so much more powerful than me?!
Goku Black: Because, Vegeta, "A rose by any other name...
[Vegeta is stabbed]
Goku Black: is still Goku."
[Vegeta falls]
Goku: Huh, different timeline, same result, eh best buddy?
Vegeta: Fu—*blood spurts from stab wound*—ck you!

—Dragon Ball Super Abridged Shorts, "Call a Doctor"

Mr Pendulum: [going into second gear] Let's make sandwiches.
Trotsky: Hey, I didn't know he could do that!
Wormwood: But of course. I made him, and properly at that. Certified battle-grade exoskeletal systems. Magnus Five cohesion and coordination chips. Ninth-generation dual processing conflict resolution hydraulic systems. Powerful enough to take down a sixth-sphere Arch Demon.
[Moloch promptly burns Pendulum's face off before knocking him away with a single punch]
Wormwood: ...All of which apparently means he'll last about five seconds against this guy.

—Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse

I often think about how people like us tend to be weak foils in fiction that stars people like you. Whenever the psychic protagonist appeared, we'd always be lying in a pool of blood, just to emphasize the strength of the opponent. That's fine. That just goes to show how powerful people think we are. But I've always wanted to say one thing. If a monster or an evil psychic or an android or an evil ninja really appears... There is just one thing that I'd like to say: Don't underestimate the Traffic Police Force, monster!

—Kinnosuke Kuzuhara, Durarara!!

You guys can't beat me! Special forces always die in spy fiction to prove how dangerous the situation is.

— "Gritty" Protagonist, Terrible Writing Advice, "Spies"

"I blame Queen Chrysalis for it. It's annoying; you lose once to a supercharged Changeling Queen in a room crowded with innocent civilians, and suddenly everypony thinks they can defeat you.

— Princess Celestia, A Series of Stories

Servant of Darkness: "But do not seek to challenge me..." (backhanding Superboy away) "Least of all you, Kryptonian."
Cosmic Boy: "Did you see that— He swatted Superboy like a bug?!"

— The Great Darkness Saga

First you fight a bunch of lizards^note some Jagras who are basically just lining up to get killed. Then you fight their dad^note Great Jagras who's just a big punching bag, but he can hit you back...And then you fight Godzilla,^note Deviljho who uses the lizard dad as a fucking chew toy, and then LAUNCHES him at you! And then you fight a funny monkey!^note Rajang ...WHO MAKES GODZILLA LOOK LIKE A PUNK BITCH, AND THERE ARE NO WORDS IN THE CHIMPANZEE ALPHABET THAT SPELL OUT THE WORDS "CONSENT FORM"!!

— PunkDuck, How to Monster Hunter

"This wasn't right. When he first heard the battle, he'd expected to turn up in time to stop Sephiroth's Masamune from piercing the pretty blond's throat. Not to see the silver-haired General being pushed back, outmanoeuvred, and barely keeping up. More alarming, there wasn't the barest hint of the smug expression his rival normally boasted, even as the air crackled with magic. Sephiroth was serious. No, more than that. Sephiroth was serious, and he was on the verge of losing."

— The Fifth Act, regarding the time-displaced Cloud

"Do you know how long it took us to neutralize your greatest ship? Four minutes. In four minutes, the Infinity, mankind's finest achievement, became a memory. (chuckles)"

—Escharum, Halo Infinite

Worf is a Klingon, classic Proud Warrior Race Guy and head of security, so it’s basically his job to fight stuff. Unfortunately, Star Trek as a franchise is pretty lacking in hand-to-hand combat. [...] This means that Worf doesn’t really have a lot to do on an average day, and pretty much the only time combat becomes an issue is when the threat of the week bitchslaps Worf into a wall to establish that, bad news everybody, brute strength won’t be able to solve this problem! This unfortunately produces a character whose combat expertise is pretty much entirely tell-don’t-show, and instead of it being a big thing when he gets gently karate-chopped into the nearest console, it’s more of a token story beat to inform the audience that this episode’s gonna take a while to get anywhere.

— Red, Overly Sarcastic Productions, "Trope Talk: Powerhouses"

Some villains are good for being the focal point of a lengthy story – not these guys. Some villains are good for when you need to have a rookie hero prove themselves – that’s not the Cadre either. The Cadre are the villains you need when you need to have a scene where your hero meets up with the other hero you want to write a teamup story for, but that other hero needs to be busy fighting bad guys to show that he deserves to be in your hero’s comic book on equal ground. The Cadre are the guys that other hero beats up.

—Christopher Bird, on The Cadre

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