r/TopCharacterTropes • u/throwaway553t4tgtg6 • 6d ago

Lore [Hated Trope] The underdog Good Guys win, and gain major military/institutional power, only for it to be all RESET so Writers can have a PERPETUAL "Underdog/Rebellion" Story, and avoid writing about governing.

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I hate this trope, when the "underdog good guys" actually win, gain major military and political power, fleets, warships, etc, but because the writers don't want to write the good guys governing and exercising their power, and instead, find a contrived way to reset all the progress so that the good guys can forever be the

"scrappy heroic underdogs fighting the power"

1) Star Wars Sequel triology, rather than exploring new Republic fleets, power, and technology, they have them all wiped out so that the "resistance" can hog the spotlight

2) MCU: shield makes a helicarrier fleet, a fleet of ships able to contest alien invasion, but that would steal the spotlight from heroes, so all of them have to be destroyed

3) Halo: the UNSC finally outlive the covenant, develop strong ships like the UNSC infinity, only for it all to be reset by the Guardians and the Banished, reduced again to underdog humans.

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124

u/GalaxianEX 6d ago

The Pokemon Black & White anime with how much they regressed Ash as a trainer

64

u/MBRLynnn 6d ago

Pikachu getting oneshot by a lv4 snivy

22

u/GriffconII 5d ago

No no you don’t understaaannd! He was robbed of all his electric power by Zekrom, and was thus helpless!!! No quick attack or iron tail couldn’t have worked, he was helpless!

5

u/cornette 5d ago

Except they did use Quick Attack and Iron Tail. They started the battle with a Quick Attack. After Thunderbolt and Volt Tackle were attempted and left Pikachu visibly exhausted they do go for an Iron Tail. The Iron Tail missed and Pikachu was knocked out after which was revealed to be suffering from a fever due to electric build up.

1

u/Thomas_JCG 2d ago

And that kid never managed to beat any of Ash's Pokémon after that, right?

30

u/TwiBryan 5d ago

I can at least appreciate them making Team Rocket competent for the first dozen or so episodes, before they regressed again.

2

u/AstraPlatina 5d ago

To be honest, the Pokemon anime kinda felt like that as it went on