In Defense of Brute Strength...

[Eggsnham]

One thing I can't stand about films and shows where the heroes are pitted against invulnerable, immortal, or perpetually regenerating villains is when the heroes make it their mission to get sidetracked with hunting down items on a deadly shopping list so they can hurt the bad guy. If it takes you more time trying to figure out how to kill a bad guy than it takes for you to actually kill said bad guy, then you're not trying hard enough.

I love it when a seemingly unstoppable healing factor is cut short by pure brute force. Not every immortal character needs a long and convoluted list of specifications to be met just to kill them; sometimes hitting them until they die is not only the most sensible way to go about it, but also the most intense and visually thrilling. Maybe it's the whole underdog thing, the idea that an objectively weaker opponent manages to out-strong the strongman, or maybe it's just that watching a villain get his long overdue, thorough ass-kicking at the hands of the hero is just fuckin' rad. No matter the reason, watching the hero overcome the villain with an ironclad determination and a creatively improvised deathtrap will always be more satisfying than watching the villain get shanked with a dagger that was custom made for the express purpose of killing them.

But wait, what's that you say? It's better when the protagonist has to find an ancient, enchanted silver blade, coat it in the blood of 1000 virgins and plunge it into the heart of the big bad during a full blood-red moon? Nah, son, just immolate that ************. Burn his bones to ash and burn those ashes even more. Pulverize him, throw him in a meat grinder, crush him into fine atomic paste, hack him into itty bitty pieces and feed said pieces to ravenous wild dogs... curb stomp his regenerating ass into the sidewalk until he has become one with the concrete! You don't need a silly checklist full of obscure, vaguely occult items to kill the immortal asshole, you just need to try harder.

Your thoughts, escapists?

 

[EternallyBored]

in cases of magic, the brute force option is sometimes flatout impossible, it's kind of hard to just hit them harder if they are incorporeal or immune to everything except the magical mcguffin. Plenty of superhero stories do exactly what you suggest: hero gets beat, hero retreats for a bit, hero comes back and punches villain even harder.

The issue here is twofold, on one end, if the solution is just "hit them harder, or do more damage" then you've either got to find a way to pad out the story or you're going to end up with a ridiculously short movie or show.

The other issue is that if your hero isn't strong enough to do this, then you just end up with another tired trope of doing the training montage or the inexplicable hero powerup.

Yeah, I honestly don't think the magic mcguffin trope gets used all that often in reference to an invincible villain, the "train until I can hit them harder" trope seems to be the more common variation in the end.

 

[Eggsnham]

in cases of magic, the brute force option is sometimes flatout impossible, it's kind of hard to just hit them harder if they are incorporeal or immune to everything except the magical mcguffin. Plenty of superhero stories do exactly what you suggest: hero gets beat, hero retreats for a bit, hero comes back and punches villain even harder.

The issue here is twofold, on one end, if the solution is just "hit them harder, or do more damage" then you've either got to find a way to pad out the story or you're going to end up with a ridiculously short movie or show.

The other issue is that if your hero isn't strong enough to do this, then you just end up with another tired trope of doing the training montage or the inexplicable hero powerup.

Yeah, I honestly don't think the magic mcguffin trope gets used all that often in reference to an invincible villain, the "train until I can hit them harder" trope seems to be the more common variation in the end.

Fair points, I can't honestly say that an ordinary person beating the ever-living shit out of a ghost or a similarly untouchable entity is feasible... except for comedic effect, maybe. Though I suppose I'm more of the kind of person who likes to see corporeal villains (and, if the tone of the show matches the occasion, heroes) treated as though they were expendable. If the story is about making your way to the enemy leader in order to kill him, then the show should be about the journey to find him, not the journey to find the bane of his existence. Any necessary training and toughening up can and should be done along the way, not as an intentional side-quest. If your protagonist runs into a fight that they're almost certainly going to lose, then they deserve to lose. Whether they lose their life and limb or just their honor as a fighter is up to the writer, but it's always been more interesting to me if a hero limps away from a fight burdened by one less limb or important sensory organ... or if (one of) the hero(es) doesn't live to limp away at all. Similarly, if the good guy is able to stand up to the bad guy, whether through wit, speed, strength or all of the above, then they deserve to at least get the opportunity to improvise a brutish, dirty end for the arrogant villain with the wicked healing abilities.

 

[senordesol]

I'll admit, watching Hulk smash the crap out of Loki was pretty satisfying and struck me as a bold and rare narrative maneuver.

However such things are fairly difficult for writers to handle consistently. If the hero had the wherewithal to simply beat the shit out of the villain the entire time; where's the story? What's the conflict? How are the stakes raised?

The drama in the story comes from the fact that the hero has some challenge to overcome and so (by definition) should not be equipped to deal with the adversity that opposes him from the outset.

I'm not saying the idea has *no* merit, but such a proposal risks turning a story from an epic of wit and discovery to a dry telling of some protagonist performing a chore.

 

[Keoul]

Seems kinda boring though.

Spoiler

Can't seem to get timestamp thing to work so just skip to 5:24

 

[giles]

I believe your premise is flawed. It's not satisfying to watch the villain get killed just because he's evil or something (that's kind of sociopathic).

The satisfying part about a classic "defeat the bad guy" story is that the hero goes through some sort of trial to overcome the villain. Acquiring that magical sword and coat it with the blood of 1000 virgins is tough work and in the end it's the satisfaction of having that hard work pay off which makes this (simplistic) story concept compelling to the audience. If we see the hero acquire that strength to beat the evildoer into a bloody pulp, then "brute force" is the "magic dagger" of the story; it serves the same purpose.
Watching a "hero" just randomly be strong enough to beat the bad guy into goo sounds pretty boring in itself. Also what kind of hero would just murder a weaker opponent...

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Edge of Tomorrow did something similar to that, didn't it?

I'd say I'm tired of these legendary macguffins because they've been done to death, and similarly satirised to death.

We need new tropes goddammit, instead of re-making old ones!

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

Edge of Tomorrow did something similar to that, didn't it?

I'd say I'm tired of these legendary macguffins because they've been done to death, and similarly satirised to death.

We need new tropes goddammit, instead of re-making old ones!

Tropes are not bad, Sigmund, and new tropes are harder to come up with than you might think. We've done a LOT of different stories.

OT: If it works for the story, brute strength is fine. In the Joe Pitt casebooks, there are vampires that are basically invincible due to super healing and strength, and the fights are nice and gory; it's not about winning with one perfect bullet to the heart, because the vamp will probably still be standing; it's about emptying a shotgun into them to take them down, then hacking them apart with a hatchet before they stitch themselves back together.

Then again, while brute force tends to be the way tabletop players solve most of their problems, I personally like it when a group invests in winning in a clever way that ensures them a more total victory, rather than going Hulk on everything just because they have good odds of winning a straight-up fight.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Edge of Tomorrow did something similar to that, didn't it?

I'd say I'm tired of these legendary macguffins because they've been done to death, and similarly satirised to death.

We need new tropes goddammit, instead of re-making old ones!

Tropes are not bad, Sigmund, and new tropes are harder to come up with than you might think. We've done a LOT of different stories.

OT: If it works for the story, brute strength is fine. In the Joe Pitt casebooks, there are vampires that are basically invincible due to super healing and strength, and the fights are nice and gory; it's not about winning with one perfect bullet to the heart, because the vamp will probably still be standing; it's about emptying a shotgun into them to take them down, then hacking them apart with a hatchet before they stitch themselves back together.

Then again, while brute force tends to be the way tabletop players solve most of their problems, I personally like it when a group invests in winning in a clever way that ensures them a more total victory, rather than going Hulk on everything just because they have good odds of winning a straight-up fight.

Fine, then I'll just blame Hollywood like I usually do. I might also blame the corporations whilst I'm at it.

 

[AJ_Lethal]

Dunno, brute strength right off the bat to defeat an antagonist sounds boring as shit. It's better when the heroes have to sweat it to come up with the strength/strategy to defeat the antagonist.

Like the fight against Super 17 in DBGT, that was clever in it's time (basically exploiting his energy absorption ability to whack him)

 

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, brute strength can work just fine.

But, have to make it interesting. Though, shouldn't be too hard...if you are going to splatter the enemy with a .50BMG sniper rifle, well, you still need to sneak up to a place where you can shoot them.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

A perfect example of this would be in FMA:B when...

Spoiler

Roy Mustang combusted the living fuck out of Envy

There's just gotta be the right tone for it if you wanna viciously destroy the evil doer. Also a bit of a plot device, like you've gotta catch em or something. It sure as hell is satisfying to watch though, the badder the villain the better,

 

[(name here)]

Personally, I like it when the hero finds a clever way to beat the invincible villain without having to go acquire something. It can sometimes be really satisfying overwhelming them in a brute contest of strength, but victory by quick thinking feels more earned.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

I'll admit, watching Hulk smash the crap out of Loki was pretty satisfying and struck me as a bold and rare narrative maneuver.

However such things are fairly difficult for writers to handle consistently. If the hero had the wherewithal to simply beat the shit out of the villain the entire time; where's the story? What's the conflict? How are the stakes raised?

The drama in the story comes from the fact that the hero has some challenge to overcome and so (by definition) should not be equipped to deal with the adversity that opposes him from the outset.

I'm not saying the idea has *no* merit, but such a proposal risks turning a story from an epic of wit and discovery to a dry telling of some protagonist performing a chore.

there is a lot of criticism of the "hit him harder" type stories, just look at how Superman is seen as a 'boring' character, because he never really trains or requires magical items to destroy his villains (in the movies/cartoons anyway) he just... hits them harder, and this time it works.


Despite the kick ass speech it basically boils down to "Oh no, he's too strong - Wait, I'll just use the rest of my strength" Which kind of negates the threat of the villain in the first place, which was a criticism I have heard of the Avengers, being a team composed of very powerful people against waves of endless mooks, and with Loki not really being a major physical threat, the biggest problem they had were the nukes launched by their own side

I'm not really keen on the search for the ancient magical macguffin that is the only thing to defeat evilm, since it has also kind of overdone when played straight. I remember before Mass Effect 3 came out the biggest worry from fans was that the writers would cop out by introducing a magical Reaver killing weapon to resolve the threat of the Reavers, because we've seen it so many times before we all know how it would pan out; People didn't want it because they'd seen it so many times before.

I think Die Hard did character progression very well. The Hero cannot defeat the villain at the start because he is outclassed, but he manages to go from underdog to being able to confront him by taking what he needs in guerrilla warfare, and it's not done in the standard training montage, or tapping into power he always had, but by said risky guerrilla tactics:

Spoiler

I also really enjoyed the Guardians of the Galaxy way of solving it, SORT-OF-SPOILERS with a series of plans that don't really work, but still delay and frustrate the villain into a final show down where they finally get the better of him by using his main weapon against him in a way that is a genuine last ditch sacrifice.

Above all, I think there always needs to be a genuine risk, and the much used "inner strength" or "magical anti-evil macguffin" don't really do it for me anymore since they've been done so many times before.

 

[theNater]

Despite the kick ass speech it basically boils down to "Oh no, he's too strong - Wait, I'll just use the rest of my strength" Which kind of negates the threat of the villain in the first place, which was a criticism I have heard of the Avengers, being a team composed of very powerful people against waves of endless mooks, and with Loki not really being a major physical threat, the biggest problem they had were the nukes launched by their own side

I think it's important in both those cases that the heroes are not the ones being threatened. The city and the world are what's under threat, and Darkseid and Loki with their armies are credible threats to them. Superman's concern about cutting loose isn't just that he'll hurt his opponent, but that by engaging in overkill he'll do more damage to the city than his opponent could. This is exactly the issue with the nukes in Avengers; the council is about to destroy something in the name of protecting it.

 

[DaWaffledude]

I'd be inclined to disagree with you, but I just finished Gurren Lagann (and loved it), so...

 

[GabeZhul]

This reminds me of that brutal story Spoony told in one of his best Counter Monkey episodes, where the players were fighting an elaborate, vicious and gory war against an immortal demigod of war who is on a vendetta against them. In the climactic battle they solicit the help of a powerful NPC and devise a daring plan to kill him, but even that fails, leaving the villain only momentarily stunned... at which point the surviving PCs pile on him, tear him to shreds, burn the remains and scatter his ashes as far and wide as they can.

The other example that springs to mind was from Naruto, when the series was still enjoyable: Shikamaru, a major side-character and a natural born tactician fights Hidan, an immortal villain that killed his mentor. Shikamaru is a relatively weak fighter and Hidan is an unkillable monster, so what kind of crazy technique did he use to defeat him?
Lure him into a trap, behead him so that he couldn't move and bury him under tons and tons of rock on private property hidden in the middle of a forest. Yay for practicality.

 

[DrOswald]

I'd be inclined to disagree with you, but I just finished Gurren Lagann (and loved it), so...

Man I love Gurren Lagann. That fight with lordgenome was so great.

OT: Sounds like you need to read One Punch Man. He is a super hero who always defeats his opponents with the overwhelming power of a single punch.

 

[visiblenoise]

I think videogames are much more guilty of this than films and tv. That's how they drag out the game.