What's The Best Example Of Someone Underestimating Someone/Something?

[Seil]

Underestimating your opponent. We've all seen it in movies, television, books, whatever. Where the villain doesn't think the protagonist is a threat and sends their weakest goons out to destroy them, or someone gets a good piece of advice from someone who knows what the hell tbhey're talking about, and chooses to ignore it.

The most recent case of this I've seen is in Doctor Who, in the revived series, in Dalek. There's a Dalek running around and The Doctor, who knows that they're pretty much destruction incarnate, tells a security chief a good piece of advice (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E73s1WkEOyw&feature#t=5m20 s). Which he promptly chooses to ignore.

And then he dies.

Any other cases of characters underestimating the threat?

[Magus]

Literally every movie ever made where the villain possesses an army and the hero knows kung-fu is exactly like that.

EDIT: And most of the time even when the hero doesn't know kung-fu.

[A Zarkin' Frood]

All armies opposing the band of the hawk in Berserk.
About 100 soldiers underestimate the guy with the huge sword.
The horse that charges at Guts.
The other horse that charges at Guts.
Freaking demons underestimate Guts. One could think they'd know better by now.

Boy, I love Berserk.

[Flarecobra]

*Points out the obvious* Star Wars. Grand Moff Tarken thinks he's won. Single-seat fighter blows up moon-sized space station.

[greed]

Clare from Claymore breathed this for most of the series. "She's just number 47 and look how little youki she has she's harmless. Huh why aren't my attacks hitting her, and why isn't she giving up, wait why is my body over there...."

Also the Joker from The Dark Knight movie is probably the biggest case of this I've ever seen. "He's just one man he can wait..." Batman has never been more wrong.


Sephiroth. He could win any number of times if he'd just cut the party in half already.

Pretty sure all the times you see him up until you see him sealed in crystal, that's actually a illusion cast around one of those failures to make them look like Sephiroth. Then they change into a JENOVA form. So actually this is one problem he didn't have, he was busy so he kept sending lackeys to kill you, and when that didn't work he manipulated you into doing what they were meant to anyway. I mean he could have sent more I guess, but he seemed to be using them for something.


Edit: What the shit, Lithp had already posted when I made my post, why am I ahead of him?

[Lithp]

Sephiroth. He could win any number of times if he'd just cut the party in half already.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Erm, pretty much any villain ever. Also a lot of the good guys too. Oh and some of the neutrals who are really just there to either screw up and allow for plot to be created, or are just there to die so there can be deaths involved.

I think that covers everything.

[Flarecobra]

Edit: What the shit, Lithp had already posted when I made my post, why am I ahead of him?

Clock reset I assume.

[Lithp]

Pretty sure all the times you see him up until you see him sealed in crystal, that's actually a illusion cast around one of those failures to make them look like Sephiroth.

Wrong. It's either a psychic projection (the appearances where he leaves after-images) or parts of Jenova's body polymorphed into him.

The former case is somewhat understandable, but in the latter case, it's sort of implied that the Jenova forms are weaker than Sephiroth himself.

Also, when he shows up in AC, he dicks around a lot, & it's implied that he did that in FFVII, as well.

Also, Hawk's post reminds me that Bleach overdoses the Hell out of it. Show me ONE fight that isn't "You're underestimating me!"/"No YOU'RE underestimating me!" Go ahead. I dare you.

[Amake]

I'll have to go with Flarecobra. The cornerstone of the Empire's strategy is building ridiculously large mechas and spaceships and death stars in order to scare their enemies. As I believe someone's said, that doesn't work on the people who actually pose a threat.

[Hanuman]

God vs Adam&Eve You already know what's going to happen, but you are STILL surprised!

[greed]

Wrong. It's either a psychic projection (the appearances where he leaves after-images) or parts of Jenova's body polymorphed into him.

The former case is somewhat understandable, but in the latter case, it's sort of implied that the Jenova forms are weaker than Sephiroth himself.

Also, when he shows up in AC, he dicks around a lot, & it's implied that he did that in FFVII, as well.

Whatever, same thing applies, the real Sephiroth is busy sealed in fucking crystal so he sends lackies and illusions at you. It's largely irrelevant whether they're mutated failures or JENOVA fragments. He isn't really underestimating you he's throwing what he can at you, and when that doesn't work he gets clever. I mean you could ask why he doesn't send JENOVA Synthesis (was that the last one or was it Death?) at you first but eh.

AC, eh never saw it I just go by what was in the original game as all the spinoff stuff for FF games are really shitty.

[bluestarultor]

Actually, I bought AC:C. With the extended battle sequence with him, he beats the everliving shit out of Cloud, and then, just to add insult to injury, impales him like he did all those years ago in the Mako reactor and lifts him up to toy with him. His biggest mistake was asking Cloud what he valued most so he could have the pleasure of taking it away, which gave Cloud an opening to use The Power of Friendship (tm) to get beat up slightly less and THEN finally uses Omnislash (Version 6 in AC:C).

But I mean holy shit, Sephy actually beats Cloud up so badly that Zack has to drop by and give him a pep talk. When you fail so hard that your dead best friend has to haul his ass back from the afterlife to tell you how hard you fail, you're failing pretty hard.

And then to top it all off, after Cloud finally takes Sephy down, he gets fucking shot out of nowhere by the other two guys!

Cloud's survival in AC:C is nothing short of a miracle/Aerith and Zack kicking his ass out of Heaven for being a loser.



As a final, unrelated note on AC:C, they have the default language as Japanese for good reason. The English dub is, well, let's be generous and call it lacking.



On topic, I think my favorite one actually has to be in The Last Action Hero. Arnie is a movie character in the real world and is having what looks like a final confrontation with the villain of the same movie he came from. The bad guy fires a click, and Arnie, who's literally just picked up on the differences between real-world and movie logic, comes out from cover and says something like, "Claasic moovie mestaake. Tha viillan fogets to reload hiis gaan." To which the bad guy replies, "No, I just left one of the chambers empty," and promptly shoots him. It was a total blindside, but it totally fit the bad guy's character.

[Lithp]

As a final, unrelated note on AC:C, they have the default language as Japanese for good reason. The English dub is, well, let's be generous and call it lacking.

Bah. But now you see my point. THAT'S how fucking powerful Sephiroth is. So why didn't he just dice Cloud into little pieces to begin with?

He isn't really underestimating you he's throwing what he can at you, and when that doesn't work he gets clever.

Not even. He constantly shows up & knocks the entire party over, then instead of killing them, he makes them fight something or uses illusions. Moreover, he goes through the effort of forcing the party to steal the Black Materia & trek halfway across the world to personally give it to him. He even had them reclaim it right before they got to him just so they could anguish over the inevitable. Oh, & let's not forget the fact that he felt so confident that they couldn't do shit to him that he sprung them from Shinra's jail cells to begin with.

AC, eh never saw it I just go by what was in the original game as all the spinoff stuff for FF games are really shitty.

I beg to differ.

[bluestarultor]

I beg to differ.

Well, from experience, DoC isn't exactly fantastic. Pretty standard, actually, in terms of play (although they did copy DMC's mechanic of being able to shoot in the air for overseas, so it at least had that over the Japanese version). Story was pretty meh and while the cast was well-voiced, the production was pretty bland.

Crisis Core is nothing short of great, though. Zack is easily in the top five best main protagonists of the series. While the story kind of drives off a cliff and Genesis has to be in the top 5 most annoying characters of the series and winning the gold in that area for main villain for constantly quoting Loveless, it's easy to overlook just because you like Zack so much.

[krogothwolf]

Vegeta with Goku?

[Lithp]

Well, from experience, DoC isn't exactly fantastic. Pretty standard, actually, in terms of play (although they did copy DMC's mechanic of being able to shoot in the air for overseas, so it at least had that over the Japanese version). Story was pretty meh and while the cast was well-voiced, the production was pretty bland.

Crisis Core is nothing short of great, though. Zack is easily in the top five best main protagonists of the series. While the story kind of drives off a cliff and Genesis has to be in the top 5 most annoying characters of the series and winning the gold in that area for main villain for constantly quoting Loveless, it's easy to overlook just because you like Zack so much.

Dirge isn't the best of the bunch, but there's nothing really wrong with it. I actually really liked CC's plot & villain. Zack & Genesis worked well together. No homo.

The only spinoffs I'm absolutely positive I don't like are Last Order, TA, TA2, & XII.

Yes, XII. I'm aware it has a number, but screw that shit, Tactics came first.

[Hanuman]

Vegeta with Goku?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH_pdoCGCh4

[walkertexasdruid]

Emperor Gastahl with Kefka.

[Lithp]

Emperor Gastahl with Kefka.

That felt more like Did Not Do the Research to me. Had he known that you wouldn't be able to cast magic at the area inside the statues, he probably wouldn't have dropped his guard.

[Jagos]

Xykon with Azure City.

[Lithp]

Xykon with Azure City.

After reading a bit about what happened with Lirian's Gate, I'm starting to think that's going to be a trend.

[walkertexasdruid]

Order of the Stick with Xykon.

[synkr0nized]

*Points out the obvious* Star Wars. Grand Moff Tarken thinks he's won. Single-seat fighter blows up moon-sized space station.

I went near-frothing-at-the-mouth raving about this the other night when some friends were over.

Like, I grew up loving Star Wars 'cause holy shit the ships are awesome. Now I tend to hate it, 'cause holy shit the writing is so bad/good guys having to win trumps all logic. RARGGBDGDG

[Krylo]

Isn't that every action/actiony movie ever, though?

John McClane alone and unarmed should have just as small a chance against a group of terrorists or highly trained military special ops. John Preston shouldn't be able to murder a hojillion grammaton clerics. Batman shouldn't be able to take out a bunch of dudes with machine guns. John Rambo (what is it with Johns anyway?) shouldn't be able to make an entire city and then an entire jungle his bitch. Ellen Ripley, a random cargo captain, shouldn't be better equipped to deal with the Alien menace than space marines, an immunity to pain should not make either V nor Darkman capable of fighting off a million and one thugs or getting the shit shot out of them.

And the justifications those movies provide are just as flimsy, if not more so, than 'the Ewoks had a home field advantage', or 'they didn't design the cooling port very well, and also the force'.

Action movies are all ABOUT having shitty writing with the good guys winning no matter what. The measure of whether they're good or not is simply how cool they look while they do it, and how well looking awesome can keep your mind from the stupid.

[synkr0nized]

Yes.

But for some reason Star Wars gets me all riled up about it where most other films I just shrug it off or make fun of it and move on. :/



Another thing that bugs me is when main characters are, like, left behind or captured and whole teams are assembled to go get them. And then something like 1-8 guys die in the process of rescuing them or are taken prisoner with no teams formed to rescue them.

But that basically happens in real life, too, so...

[Krylo]

To be fair Lucas is incredibly awful and Star Wars was only good at all because the original trilogy's actors ad libbed a lot.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Isn't that every action/actiony movie ever, though?

John McClane alone and unarmed should have just as small a chance against a group of terrorists or highly trained military special ops. John Preston shouldn't be able to murder a hojillion grammaton clerics. Batman shouldn't be able to take out a bunch of dudes with machine guns. John Rambo (what is it with Johns anyway?) shouldn't be able to make an entire city and then an entire jungle his bitch.

I know it's off topic, but you're the first person besides me that seems to have realised this. These days everyone is named John, or Jack.

John McClane
John Preston
John Rambo
John Conner
John Matrix (Commando)
John Sheppard (Stargate Atlantis)
Johnny Smith (Dead Zone)
John Mason (The Rock)

Jack O'Neill (Stargate SG-1)
Jack Bauer
Jack Slater (Last Action Hero)
Jack Shepherd (Lost)
Jack Bristow (Alias)

And those are just the ones I can come up with off the top of my head. Honestly, why all the Johns and Jacks??

[Krylo]

John Shepard is also the default name of the male Mass Effect character.

Edit: Double Whammy, John and Jack Marston.

[Amake]

I blame the rise in popularity of Jack of the Tales in the comic Fables.

[EVILNess]

Yeah, where are all the Angus MacGyvers?

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Oh and of course, John aka "Big Boss" and Jack aka "Raiden". Even Kojima is in on it!

[walkertexasdruid]

Seto Kaiba, Marik Ishtar, Maxamillian Pegessis, Bakura, Dartz, and Zorc the Dark One with Yugi Moto.