Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Do Not Taunt Cthulhu vs. Bullying a Dragon
, started by grapesandmilk on Sep 1st 2013 at 6:26:58 AM
Yes, the image is potholed to the source.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
This is a conflated mess that puts the blame on the wrong people, or leaves out some important details.
- Loki. Oh my gods, Loki.
- So you've got a guy who can't help breaking rules, takes the word 'impossible' as a dare, holds grudges for centuries, takes joy in humiliating the powerful—and oh, by the way he's destined to start the war that ends the universe. What do you do? If you're the rest of the Aesir, you torment him, blame everything on him, laugh at his pain, sew his lips shut,
That was a dwarf who sewed his lips shut, and that was because Loki bet his head that the dwarf could match some impressive feats of craftsmanship, only for him to tamper with the forging process so Mjolnir wouldn't be perfect. The other gods called him on his bullshit and made him put his money where his mouth was, and he only avoided losing the head he personally put up for betting by some weaseling of words, so the Dwarf sewed his lips shut.
- boast of being invulnerable in front of him,
If we're talking about Baldur, then I contest this because Baldur was the most beloved god, and he's described as being really nice, so that would seem unlikely that he'd be a jerk about the invulnerability that he didn't even orchestrate. The other gods were the ones who came up with the "throw stuff at Baldur and watch it miss him" game.
- exile his children for the crime of existing,
Admittedly, it was a dick move, but the whole thing about Loki's children was that they were dangerous. Like, eat the sun and moon dangerous, or encircle the world because you're a giant fekking sea serpent dangerous.
- get one of his kids to kill another, tie him up in a cave with a snake forced to drip venom in his eyes for who knows how long.
- Good plan there, guys. By the time he gets free he and his family have embraced that destiny with all their beings, and no one can blame them.
- Oh yeah, and to imprison Loki in the aforementioned cave, the Aesir butchered his dead son and used the son's entrails to bind him. The very same son that they, as mentioned above, had orchestrated to be killed by the other son.
While the butchering of his son by turning his other son into a wolf was a dick move, the whole "tie him up and drip snake venom on him" was because he orchestrated the murder of Baldur, the most beloved god, by tracking down the one thing in the universe capable of harming him, made a spear out of it, guided Baldur's blind brother Hoor into throwing the Mistletoe spear into Baldur's heart, got the other gods to execute Hoor for the murder he personally orchestrated, then disguised himself as a giantess and under said disguise said he would not mourn Baldur's death, which prevented Baldur's resurrection. Please note, Hel was willing to release Baldur if everyone, alive and dead, mourned Baldur. Literally everybody in the universe but Loki's disguised self mourned Baldur.
Loki was jerked about a fair bit, but he did a lot of jerking himself.
Edited by 70.24.219.104
So, what's the difference between the tropes Bullying a Dragon and Do Not Taunt Cthulhu? I ask this because the example of Admiral Motti trash-talking Darth Vader in Star Wars was put in the Do Not Taunt Cthulhu section. Wouldn't that example be more along the lines of Bullying a Dragon?
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Yes. The main difference is that Do Not Taunt Cthulhu involves characters taunting someone they think defeated/harmless who usually is dangerous, while Bullying A Dragon involves characters bullying someone, completely ignoring the fact that it's, well, a dragon.
I think the difference is the bullied party's response. Dragon would be someone who won't retaliate or would take a great deal of prompting to do so. A Cthulu conversely needs little prompting to take action. A good pair of examples would be a Predator(Dragon) vs an Alien(Cthulu): Throw rocks at a predator, it'll likely take effort before it comes down on you. An alien will tear you apart (or worse)immediately.
The second example would be Superman(Dragon) vs Darkseid(Cthulu) Insult Superman and the most you can expect is a strongly worded urging to stop. Try that with Darkseid and he'll disintegrate you without a second thought.
Not having read the Mass Effect comic, can anyone tell me whether or not these would-be rapists knew this was Liara? This trope is about people who knowingly screw with people more powerful than them, and just because all asari are biotics, doesn't mean all asari are powerful biotics. Without training, the average asari might well have as much biotic strength as Niftu Cal.
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I recall a conversation between Liara and Kaidan that reveals that all Asari undergo biotic training as part of their standard school curriculum, it remains possible that this isn't commonly known and most non-asari think exactly that.
Rahalimus
What about anytime pre-spaceflight humans antagonize someone who has practical space travel tech, since all they would have to do is zip out to the asteroid belt, pick out one of their desired size, and then drag/push it to Earth on drop it on them. No legitimate weapons required. What should that be filed under? "General"? "Other"? Or is there a flaw in this that I've overlooked?
Why is the War of 1812 in the Real Life Examples? The history leading up to the war is a lot more complex than the US antagonizing the British Empire for no or petty reasons, it was that the fledgling nation got sick and tired of getting their civilians sailors pressed into service in the British Navy.
I feel that Don'tTugOnSuperman'sCape should be the proper titles for this.
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Why? The current title is clear and short.
That was the amazing part. Things just keep going.
I removed a few examples, but I felt I should explain why here:
Iron Giant: They weren't trying to bully the giant robot. They were trying to kill it.
Red Dead Redemption: This is more a case of Mugging the Monster. Yeah, John has bandoliers of ammo and a rifle on his back, but in that setting, that doesn't say much about him.
A Bug's Life: I don't know if the "united they could beat us easily" qualifies the ants as dragons, but even without that, Hopper was exploiting them. Getting a rise out of them was the exact opposite of what he wanted.
"In distress", my ass.
As per Fast Eddie, here, "[t]he very instant a Real Life folder becomes any kind of problem, it goes right in the trash". The Real Life folder was kind of obnoxiously natteriffic.
Good. Many of the Real Life example would fit better under other tropes, particularly the ones involving people who aren't obviously dangerous, like the old, frail-looking aikido master.
Did the boss know Bob was a former superhero? If he didn't then unless we want to point out the size differential, it's not BAD.
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No he didn't and being his boss isn't exepted for Bob to assult him.
I'd've thought the Vulcans would be a pretty obvious example of this. Human Starfleet officers seem to find nothing more amusing than teasing their Vulcan colleagues. This is despite the fact that Vulcans are all super-strong, super-long lived, psychopathic telepaths that turn into ticking rape time-bombs every seven years... with only a thin layer of, (granted, very impressive), self control keeping them stable.
Doing anything to try and mess with that self control seems like a very Too Stupid To Live thing to do.
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There are probably some individual examples where this applies, but in general a Vulcan is significantly less likely to lose control over verbal taunting than...well, pretty much any other race in that universe. If you can affect their self-control by teasing them, something is already wildly wrong with them.
Also punching your colleague for a minor tease is illogical and Disproportionate Retribution making you a jerk too
Re: Elfen Lied example: Thank you! Someone finally puts in an example that actually resembles a Bullying a Dragon, that isn't stupid kids picking on a girl they didn't know had super powers and writing it like they did.
Deleted this:
- Superman, to an extend. Back in the 70's he or rather Clark Kent was bullied all the time by Steve Lombard even though Superman always got back at him. The one time Superman didn't do something in return Lombard became paranoid waiting for something to happen and was relieved when it finally happened at the end of the issue. That of course didn't stop him from bullying Clark again in the next issues.
Lombard didn't know that it was Superman doing those things. He didn't even know it was Clark. He just thought it was strange things happening for some bizarre twist of fate.
Can we do something about the natterfest that is the Naruto entry? Is it a case of Bullying a Dragon?
Can we add The Kid from I Wanna Be The Guy? He's a One-Hit-Point Wonder trying to kill a guy who can withstand a shit ton of damage, all because he wants the title.
I would say that Bullying a Dragon can be applied to non-supers, but only if there is a sizable difference in known menace (huge guy versus small guy, kung fu legend versus couch potato)
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Agreed. It's about doing bad things to someone that is capable of retaliation (likely in a disproportionate manner). Powers are just one option.
Reviewing movies is a lot like Paleontology: The Evidence is there...but no one seems to agree upon it.
The Homelander vs Omniman fight seems more like Mugging the Monster, since Homelander seems oblivious to how outmatched he is.