Darkwing Duck: Yeah? Well then, let's get dangerous!
Things are looking bleak. The protagonist and their allies have been backed into a corner; the villain's kung fu has proven stronger than theirs. Only a hero can save them now, and they haven't got any heroes, just the comic relief, sidekicks or mentor figures who thus far been passive at best, Boisterous Weaklings at worst. Might as well give up now. It's ov—
—wait, what're they doing? They're going in? Don't they know that they're outside the Competence Zone? They're prime C-List Fodder! They'll be folded in half! They'll— they'll— ...they just punched the villain through a wall!
A moment in the story when all the quirky, eccentric supporting cast members, or Super Zeroes, stop being quirky and eccentric and start demonstrating actual competence. The effect is often similar to taking a level in badass, except that we can safely assume the 'joke' characters always were badass; they've never had a good opportunity to show it. Granted, in some cases, they've freely claimed to be badass but have shown, if anything, the opposite.
The Trope Namer is the catchphrase of Darkwing Duck, a bumbling hero whose utterance of the phrase marked the point in every episode where he would set aside his enormous ego and start taking things seriously, demonstrating his true competence as a crimefighter.
Sometimes preceded by Lock-and-Load Montage or a "Hell, Yes!" Moment, depending on the circumstances.
Any Retired Badass can pull this off if sufficiently provoked. Hobbits are also particularly likely to have it occur every so often. Can overlap with a Heroic Second Wind, "No More Holding Back" Speech, The Coats Are Off, The Glasses Come Off, Alternate Catchphrase Inflection, and/or a Pre-Asskicking One-Liner. Underestimating The Troublemaker and mistaking them for incompetent could lead to such a moment.
See also Giving the Sword to a Noob, The So-Called Coward, Good Is Not Dumb, Scrap Heap Hero, Not-So-Harmless Villain (the Evil Counterpart), Lethal Joke Character, I Am Not Left-Handed, This Means War!, Misfit Mobilization Moment, and Badass/Heroic Bystander. When a whole civilization decides to get dangerous, this is a Superweapon Surprise. If your enemy in a Boss Battle does this in mid-fight, that's Turns Red.
Contrast Miles Gloriosus, when a character acts like a badass outside of combat but turns into a Dirty Coward when fists start flying.
Please do not confuse this with Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass, which is when a genuinely ditzy and harmless character demonstrates bouts of superior skill — and these moments are accompanied by a change in personality or powers.
Please be cautious and thorough if adding any examples to the Real Life folder, as well as the Sports folder. While this trope is not NRLEP, any Real Life or Sports examples must meet the trope definition of being "quirky and eccentric", meeting a crisis and displaying abilities or badassery they never displayed before, then going back to being quirky and eccentric once the crisis has passed.
Example subpages:
- Anime & Manga
- Comic Books
- Fan Works
- Films — Animated
- Films — Live-Action
- Literature
- Live-Action TV
- Sports
- Video Games
- Webcomics
- Web Original
- Western Animation
Other examples:
- Find Us Alive:
- Gloriously applied in Episode 13, with the entire site descending into chaotic, joyful violence after Harley's request to "instigate large-scale property damage" and his subsequent Rousing Speech. Personnel incinerate Dash Ones left and right and break victims of the vine monster Dash Two out of the walls, and Harley narrates the chaos like a sports commentator over the site comms.
Harley: Site-107, I have been advised by our fearless leader to impart the following message to all unoccupied staff:
- And again in Episode 18, when the Night Game is interrupted by an entire colony of Dash Two ant monsters.
Harley: I'm out in the field, it's chaos the likes of which I've never seen! This is Foundation personnel on a completely new level! The madness! The violence! The pure, unhinged EUPHORIA!
- Gloriously applied in Episode 13, with the entire site descending into chaotic, joyful violence after Harley's request to "instigate large-scale property damage" and his subsequent Rousing Speech. Personnel incinerate Dash Ones left and right and break victims of the vine monster Dash Two out of the walls, and Harley narrates the chaos like a sports commentator over the site comms.
- WWE example: The Stooges (Gerald Brisco and Pat Patterson) were retired ex-champions reduced to corporate yes-men for the McMahons. WWF World Tag Team Champions
The New Age Outlaws (Road Dogg and Billy Gunn) arranged to meet them in a 'hardcore' (anything goes) match, and proceeded to find themselves on the end of 'old school hardcore' (i.e. blinding handfuls of talcum and concealed fist-loads instead of blatant weapons).
- Black Rose has as much to say about herself, but also of pro wrestlers in general. Just because they look happy or friendly when you see them out and about or in photo shoots doesn't mean you should expect that to last when they get in the ring. She said this about a picture taken with Jessicka Havok and Leilani Kai at SHINE, that latter of whom would help crush Rose's throat not long afterwards.
- Orange Cassidy from All Elite Wrestling aka. "the King of Sloth Style" is a character defined by his extreme laziness, apathy and unflappability, moseying around with his hands in his pockets, dark sunglasses covering his eyes and a blank expression on his face. While he occasionally displays unexpected agility and skill, once he sees off anyone who's bothering him (usually delivering a dropkick and kip-up without even taking his hands out of his pockets), he's generally considered a Joke Character who hadn't wrestled even one singles match in over half a year in the company, only taking part in a few tag matches with his buddies the Best Friends. But when PAC finally challenged him to a singles match, Cassidy finally revealed that he is actually an extremely skilled wrestler once he stops clowning around and actually starts to try. He completely blindsided PAC with the sudden transformation.
- Fraggle Rock: Put dithering, self-proclaimed wimp Wembley under stress and you get a Fraggle who furiously pummels the "Hairy Monster from Outer Space" (read: Sprocket, but consider how a Big Friendly Dog looks to a smaller creature) or beats The Ace Gobo in a full-out race. Sometimes, anyway. The rest of the time he'll sputter incoherently and be unable to put together a cogent sentence until he's turned upside down.
- In Archipelago Exodus, this is Emily Schwartzwald's M.O. She spends the majority of most topics as a whimsical Cloudcuckoolander handing out snacks to the real adventurers, but when the chips are down and her friends are in danger, she cuts loose with a frenzy of pinpoint projectiles that'll give any non-God-tier Power pause.
- Garth Firbolg is also worth noting; due to his powers slowly killing him and his retiring personality, he's usually the Butt-Monkey for whatever plot he's in. But when he cuts loose, he's performed such feats as summoning a forty foot long python made of flames, launching a giant bull spirit into outer space, and gating in a comet the size of Kentucky.
- In the first game of Destroy the Godmodder, players were just trying mostly in vain to damage said Godmodder. Then the Terror Zombie and Terror Skeleton joined the battle, and the number of poster-summoned entities went from zero to 5 in just a couple of pages. It never stopped there.
- Ruby spends most of Ruby Quest as an Action Survivor. Then she confronts the Hound Zombie ( Daisy) and finishes the fight in one move by throwing the Hound Zombie through a container of acid and into an exposed electrical panel.
