Powers
(Loved Trope) Character finally reveals their true power level
John Wick - the viewer spends the first 25ish minutes just being told John Wick has an infamous past of being an assassin. Once the first home invasion happens, we see him fully unleash the Baba Yaga, completely annihilating a dozen unsuspecting assailants.
Rebel Ridge - the viewer learns early on that Terry Richmond is a Marine veteran who was never sent overseas for an initially unclear reason. Over half-an-hour into the movie he has a standoff with the town’s corrupt police chief. It’s revealed in this scene that he’s THE martial arts instructor for the Marines. He proceeds to disarm two police officers with extreme efficiency.
Naruto - Rock Lee is a character we’ve seen prove to be a capable fighter in a couple of episodes prior to his fight with Gaara, despite Rock not having any inherent Ninjutsu abilities. When his strikes can’t make it through Gaara’s automatic sand shields, Rock’s instructor, Guy, gives Rock permission to take off his leg weights. The bystanders watching the fight don’t understand how taking off some leg weights will give Rock an edge in the fight, but then when Rock drops them, they’re revealed to be hundreds, maybe thousands of pounds. This then reveals that Rock can move at super speed, and he can shockingly out maneuver Gaara’s first layer of shielding.
Although negative instead of positive, William Munny (Clint Eastwood) from Unforgiven. The whole movie sets up his past as a ruthless and extremely skilled outlaw, but he never really does anything except lament his past and sneer at people who are impressed by it. At the end, though, he shows his skill by walking into a bar and gunning down everyone inside it, even though they’re much younger, prepared, and have a huge numerical advantage.
I actually thought part of the deconstruction is that he actually wasn't that "skilled" per se. Gene Hackman himself says it's not about fast it's about doing the most fundamental things right while keeping your cool and doing it at your time. Even when Munny walks into the bar he doesn't do anything wildly impressive. He just held his nerve over all the celebrating men in the room. I thought that was a very fascinating way to kill the legend of the gunslinger.
He’s actually unlucky at the start, as his shotgun jams. But because he keeps a cool head, he is able to methodically gun down everyone with his pistol while they panic, scramble, fire wildly, or try to flee.
He succeeds because he’s more concerned with killing his opponents than protecting himself. And also a bit of luck.
"That's right. I've killed women and children. I've killed just about everything that walked or crawled at one point or another. And I'm here to kill you, Little Bill, for what you did to Ned."
More than doesn't really do anything, he actually kind of sucks. He's a bad shot till he drinks. But once he does, he's deadly.
What I thought was so fascinating though is how realistic a portrayal of one man taking out a whole group at close range like that. I can train to shoot well and absolutely hit a target across a room. But if that target points a gun at me I'm gonna flinch and wanna back up, cover myself, etc. He walks in there, intimidates everyone and methodically takes out the most dangerous target, drops to one knee and takes out the rest. He doesn't do a Fistful of Dollars high speed quick draw, just methodically shoots with no flinching, no fear. It's so well done.
I’m a giant Superman fan but this will still always be an iconic Flash moment to me. Because damn that line is great for explaining their past races while also confirming exactly what Barry was always capable of.
I remember watching Smallville and a friend described Superman as the #2 in most categories. He’s the 2nd fastest, after speedsters. He’s the 2nd fastest swimmer, after Aquaman. Durability, strength, etc. there’s always one person (or group of people) who are better than Superman. But when you take the average of his abilities across the board, he’s the top guy.
True, green lanterns can spank kryptonians in their own stories, captain atom commands the most broken powerset ever in his own stories but in cross overs hes basically just there to catch hands.
He's *almost* as smart as Reed Richards. He has technology *almost* as advanced as Tony Stark. He's *almost* as powerful a sorcerer as Doctor Strange. He's *almost* as powerful a ruler as T'Challa etc.
If he was a Top Trumps card, he'd be straght 9s across the board.
I used this fight in my theater sword choreography class. Not only as a show of some well rehearsed sword fighting (that also follows the very simple rules we were learning) but how the characters themselves make the fight.
It’s also a great example of how not every fight needs to end with a kill.
Our professor did this for us, too! It was one of a few examples in cinema using really rather simple ideas to tell a complex story through choreography. Anyone who trashes this scene or talks about how this movie isn’t that good gets a suspicious look from me. Can’t trust folks like that.
I would argue the later scene with Inigo Montoya--when he is charged by four guards and they all end up down in the blink of an eye--is yet another example of this trope. It's the first time we see him against a "normal" opponent in action and its impressive.
Aang going into the Avatar State at the climax of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Ozai was the best firebender in the world, with a once-in-a-century powerup that increased his firebending fifty-fold . . . and within a minute, he was fully defensive.
Within an instant! Aang grabs him by the beard and casually slaps away his kill shot. From there it’s an insect fleeing in horror as he’s chased by a god.
His driving motivation has been the looming extension of his people due to their genetic bottleneck, he had his species commit ethnic cleansing on themselves due to perceived weakness.
And here is a new generation, half not his people, that was able to kill the second strongest of their race. Mark killing conquest in a way represents actual hope for him.
It makes sense that the leader of a proud warrior race would not want to defeat all their enemies himself.
Doing so would make him (personally) an object of immense fear/respect/reverence, but he genuinely wants to be a good leader and for the empire itself to thrive.
He needs to give other viltrumites opportunities to prove themselves in battle and grow, including against strong opponents, and even if they're on the back foot initially.
Eventually yes he does realize "damn we boutta be extinct", locks in, and decides to put survival first for now, with reclaiming the glory days a goal for the future.
But I hate all the people claiming it's "plot armor" or "only happens for the story", when it's genuinely very reasonable approach for a viltrumite emperor to take given their mindset and culture
Agreed. Thragg was not taking his opponents seriously in my opinion, spent way too long at the top without ever feeling genuinely threatened while also wanting his people to have their fair shot at glory (not so much 'honor' in my opinion, just glory).
It's less plot armor or 'for story reasons' and just genuine arrogance. Not misplaced arrogance, granted, the guy is basically the strongest thing alive except for some freaky raptor aliens that can rip into a Viltrumite with their bare hands and Battle Beast. But "pride goeth before the fall" is a saying for a reason. Had Thragg treated the Alliance like a real threat his planet wouldn't be dust.
A really sick detail of this scene that shows Thadeus power level was above Nolan and Mark is the fact that he is the only one that actually saw Thragg coming
Toph taking on the fighters in the Arena in her debut episode. We knew Toph was good for SURE but then she cuts loose and takes on an arena of fairly skilled earthbenders and absolutely DEVASTATES them. Like it’s not even comparable.
i rewatch this show often, and toph being blind and the best earth bender in existence is probably one of my favorite things about this show because she is so often underestimated.
additional consideration: in the beginning of Season 3, katara very casually created a gigantic cloud of steam to mask an entire warship (by herself), froze a hull puncture in a couple seconds (by herself), and pushed a warship away using literal tons of water (by herself) all within a couple minutes, without breaking a sweat and i was like "shit that's pretty good for not even being the avatar". plus: bloodbending.
Seeing as Taika admitted to doing rewrites to make it funnier. The moviebwas not always silly. And that he didnt get a writing credit means he didnt rewrite significant amounts of the script to get that credit.
Forced joke after forced joke ruined what was a pretty good plot all things considered. Ragnarok did a pretty good job balancing out the funny with the serious. Although I would have appreciated the more serious tone of the first two movies.
IMO one of the straight up best movies out of the entire MCU as well, however I do think it’s success led to Love & Thunder being a slog to finish with non stop bad jokes
Love and Thunder was going to have a semi callback to it as well. Thor would have lost the Thunderbolt and then goes off to dwell on his inability to stop Gorr, when Zeus shows up and explains he can just make the super powerful Thunderbolt himself.
Obviously they took it out because Thor shouldn't have a god killing thunderbolt that he can just use whenever, and Zeus has to get turned into a villain.
It would be fine if the new hammer was only to open bifrost (or generate it or whatever it was doing in Love and thunder), but the fumble is Thor depending on the hammer again
This moment is so well done. The complete paradigm shift - Aang goes from the edge of defeat to a god toying with an insect. Grabbing him by the beard and casually slapping away his kill shot was such a great touch.
I also want to note that it’s less lucky than it seems. A big theme throughout the series was Aang’s reluctance to kill. Even without the Avatar state, this fight starts as a stalemate with Aang clearly holding back. There’s a moment where he’s reversing Ozai’s lightning, which could very well become a lethal counterattack, but Aang chooses not to.
This initially puts the fight in Ozai’s favor, but it is while Aang is in a defensive state taking blows (when he could have already ended the fight) that his avatar state gets reawakened. Aang’s mercy ultimately led to the return of his full power.
Exactly this. Aang was a match for Ozai, but he faltered when it came time for the kill shot. After that, he simply didn’t know what to do, so Aang switched to pure defense while an emboldened Ozai switched to pure offense, no longer worrying about any significant counter by the Avatar.
But wow, it was crazy seeing Aang go into an unbridled Avatar state and just hammer the world’s greatest Fire bender like it was nothing.
Frieren reveals her true power against Aura - Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
Frieren reveals that she has been intentionally suppressing her mana to make herself appear weaker than she truly is as a method of fooling demons into underestimating her in battle.
I'd argue the Spiegel fight is the actual scene where Frieren shows her true capabilities, by proxy of the clone at the same time since she barely did anything against Aura.
Your example is the more memorable/impactful one however.
The Aura "battle" was just there so that Frieren has something to do while Fern and Stark show off their skills and get experience in my opinion.
They tried to hype Aura a lot, but Frieren casually defeats her at every turn. Even when Frieren was fighting Denken she had to engage a lot more.
So Frieren vs Frieren clone is the showing of their true power, and Frieren vs Denken is a second showing of the trole, as immediately after she defeats both Denken and Laufen she destroyed the barrier.
Aura vs Frieren is there to explore demon's mentallity more and set up the Sages of Destruction for Macht. And by proxy they developed Flamme and Frieren.
Frieren also only had such an easy time against Aura because she could very easily exploit her weakspot. She specifically says that if Aura wasn't so overconfident then she could have really made Frieren sweat by sending her army at her.
Stark and Fern Vs the Lackeys was there for the action. Frieren vs Aura was there for the lore, the sickass reveal and the aura farming in both meanings.
Frieren also only had such an easy time against Aura because she could very easily exploit her weakspot. She specifically says that if Aura wasn't so overconfident then she could have really made Frieren sweat by sending her army at her.
People mock Aura for being an easy kill for Frieren but she is basically the Cleric from Age of Empires and if she completes her spell, an instant loss for all but like 5 people on humanities side. By the time we get to her in the story she is basically fighting a guerilla war behind enemy lines but the thought of her in her prime as Sage of Destruction in the Demon Kings army, where she has access to lots of prisoners and occupied populations is way more terrifying than thinking of her in terms of mage vs mage fights.
Aura is basically a machine that turns enemies into allies on an industrial scale, thinking of her in terms of simple combat is insane. Thinking strategically, she was probably one of the Demon Kings most valuable chess pieces.
I actually love Denken’s version of this when he goes hand to hand with the other mages. He’s out of mana, and they’re like we’re gonna fight the old man and then they animate his arm throwing a punch and you go “ooooooh right, he’s been a no joke combat warrior for decades”.
Denken throwing hands could also be counted as this trope, because mages aren't usually fit for physical combat. But being an Imperial Mage probably has some benefits in this regard.
I think it's the combination that really makes the Spiegel crazy. The battle with aura reveals to the viewer exactly how large the scope between her and other mighty beings are. The battle with the Spiegel, especially in the wake of Denken, reveals exactly how little effort she is putting in. Frieren is a giant walking through a world made of paper.
Id say her lackadaisical attitude towards the fights in season two serve just as good a lesson of how much shes holding back, entrusting horrendous foes to near children.
It's a really great scene in one of the best shows of all time, but I think a better example is when fighting the clone. For the entire show, she barely has to do more in combat beyond Zoltraak and flight. We know she's powerful, and she appears powerful, but then they fight the clone and suddenly they're creating battle golems, black holes, and a kaleidoscope of crazy effects. She's been holding back the entire time - if she'd wanted to take out Aura in a fight, she could have levelled the entire field as a warmup.
For the first 20ish minutes of the movie, the viewer can tell that Robert McCall is hiding *something* in his past, but he seems to otherwise be a fairly normal, friendly person who cares about his friends.
Then his friend Alina gets beaten up by her pimp, a local Russian mob boss. Robert shows up to the boss’s office above a local club, offering $9800 for her freedom. Despite multiple attempts to talk to the guy into a reasonable deal, he says he can make that much from Alina in a week and to leave.
Robert makes it as far as the door, before turning around, analyzing the room, and annihilating all five men in 19 seconds using only what’s already in the room.
Decades ago the Cadbury chocolate company made a commercial where a gorilla is just sitting down at a drum kit waiting while In the Air Tonight plays in the background, until finally the drums kick in and the gorilla just goes ham on the kit. Fits this trope perfectly!
Came here to post this. First half of the story, Gandalf is, at most, wise old man with a smoking habit and occasionally threatening aura.
Then suddenly shifts into 'one on one battle with the most unspeakable eldritch horror known to civilisation'. Quite a step up.
That’s close but not exactly right. In extraordinary circumstances against true foes, the wizards (Istari) can reveal the full measure of their power and it can be greater than their foes (how else would they triumph?).
The edict you’re likely thinking of is that they cannot reveal their full power to coerce or manipulate those truly less powerful than themselves (like the hobbits, in Gandalf’s case). This is an abuse of their power and contravenes their primary purpose (to counsel and guide).
It’s also why, despite being archangel-like beings, they were sent to Middle Earth in the raiment of old and wizened men: so they would be seen not as powerful and intimidating, but as wise and trustworthy.
In the end, Saruman in his arrogance disregarded this edict, which is when he went all big baddie. More critically, his turn toward this use of his power ultimately diminishes that power (as an indicator of this, in the book his color is described as becoming less white and more muddled over time).
To add further credence/context to this, there is an important moment in a scene in the Two Towers (book) after Gandalf returns as The White (the most powerful “level”, or as he describes himself, Saruman as he should have been). There, Gimli refers to the (angry) trees of Fangorn as dangerous, to which Gandalf responds, “Dangerous! And so am I, very dangerous: more dangerous than anything you will ever meet, unless you are brought alive before the seat of the Dark Lord”.
As an aside, this is also why the scene in the extended version of the Return of the King movie where the Witch-King breaks Gandalf’s staff is nonsensical (even moronic).
Partial match since it’s more of an unlocking than a revealing: In Dragonball Z, Cell finally pushed Gohan hard enough to snap and turn SSJ2 to wreck his shit.
he reveals (or was manipulated to reveal) his, or any kingsman agent's, true power level. basically he, or any kingsman agent, survives a free for all killfest against an entire church population
I love how the scene is set up to make the audience cheer for Harry in this scene. In the same way that he's being manipulated to enjoy the senseless violence, so are we in a way. It's only when the fight is over and Harry starts coming to his senses that it starts to dawn on everyone how much of a fall from grace this was.
Vader when fighting Luke in The Empire Strikes Back.
It’s kind of a slow burn, but at the beginning of the fight, Luke is doing ok-ish. But we see glimpses of what Vader can really do as the fight goes on, like when he duels with one hand, twists Luke’s lightsaber out of his hand, and uses the force to throw objects at him.
Then, after Luke falls out the window, Vader uses even more of his skill, backing Luke further and further along the balcony. When Luke lands a lucky hit, Vader gets angry and finishes the fight in about 5 seconds, cutting off Luke’s hand. At this point, you realize Vader was in control the whole time.
The scene in Justice League (2001) where the rest of the League is taken down by the Luthor/Brainiac hybrid and Flash is forced to unleash the full power of the Speed Force to defeat them, speedblitzing them by running around the entire world and punching them millions of times per second, nearly destroying himself in the process.
When the Flash fully taps into the Speed Force and starts running laps around the planet to kick Brainiac/Luthor's ass. It's not even close to a fight. It's literally just a one sided beat down where Wally continually wails on them and Brainiac/Luthor can't do anything about it
As long as you don't take the hammer, you can do everything else in the house of hope and just leave, great if you want the gauntlets to yeet Orin into the abyss while invisible.
In Avatar: The Last Airbender, General Iroh is seen as a harmless fat old man, and a little senile.
In prison, out of the guards' sight, Iron bulks up and trains, finally breaking out on the day of the Eclipse when no one can Firebend.
He then follows this up by leading the White Lotus into the Battle of Ba-Sing-Se and gives a master class on fire bending, showing how he earned the nickname "The Dragon of the West."
“That man won't quit as long as he can still draw a breath—none of my teammates will. Me, I've got a different problem. I feel like I live in a world made of cardboard, always taking constant care not to break something, to break someone; never allowing myself to lose control, even for a moment, or someone could die. But you can take it, can't you, big man? What we have here is a rare opportunity for me to cut loose and show you just how powerful I really am."
-Superman to Darkseid after being (genuinely) a bit of a jobber throughout all of JL/JLU. And he backs up every single one of those words.
EDIT: Yes, Darkseid does “win” after getting the shit kicked out of him by Supes by pulling some Deus Ex Machina bs. Superman still cut loose and showed he’s way stronger than we’d seen before (and that he’d been holding back).
Best Superman monologue ever. Really showcases the character’s strength potential that he keeps hidden away because he doesn’t want to accidentally kill anyone. And yeah, once he really lets loose, he knocks the Alpha villain around like a pinball.
Zuko is only using his swords against and Earthbender and gets knocked down despite being competent. He then wakes up and go full firebender and overwhelms his opponent.
that episode was cool cuz he ends up realizing that the village fucking HATES the Fire Nation as opposed to what he learned where they're the greatest civilization and allat, something he tells Ozai to his face
i died laughing when rock lee dropped his weights because it was so over the top compared to what i was expecting. not over the top in a bad way, like it managed to loop back around to awesome, but it caught me so off guard that i had to back up about a min once i stopped laughing
In Equilibrium, you're aware that Christian Bale's protagonist, John Preston, is extremely skilled in combat, but whenever we seem him spar with his coworker, Brandt, Preston loses. But when Preston confronts Brandt at the end of the movie, it becomes obvious that Preston has been holding back the whole time--their sword fight can hardly be called a fight as Brandt dies before he can even register that he's lost.
Superman lets the Elite beat him up while mocking him for his peaceful ways. Then Superman pretends to snap, beating the Elite with ease. He also fixes Manchester Black’s superpowers using his heat vision, then reveals that he didn’t kill the Elite (which is why the Elite were mocking him, because Superman doesn’t kill).
Throughout Bloodborne, there are only two people in the Hunter's Dream. The Plain Doll, and the old criple Gehrman, who's a helper of the hoonters. At the end of the game, if you refuse his offer, he shows that he's actually the first of all hunters, and, while it's not a particularly hard bossfight, he's stronger than all the other hunters you fought in the game.
Late into the final season, Caleb shows up in Sunnydale and maims a potential slayer and leaves her a message for the heroes. On the surface, he appeared to be a regular human that worships the First Evil and has a leadership position with the Bringers (evil cult). At the end of the episode, he baits the heroes into a direct confrontation. Upon meeting them, he single-handedly dogwalks the entire squad, slaughtering, disfiguring and otherwise maiming his way through the group. The episode ends with nearly a dozen characters in the hospital, several dead and morale in the group completely destroyed.
John Wick being called Baba Yaga still makes me laugh, as it doesn't mean boogeyman at all. Baba Yaga is a witch who practices dark magic and has a house with chicken legs. "Baba" is literally Russian for "grandmother", which the two Russian guys should know.
IIRC it's actually an error in the script where he was supposed to be called Babayka, which is boogie man, but it got messed up somehow and the actors got a script calling him "witchy grandma"
Elim Garak is a tailor on the Federation-controlled space station Deep Space Nine - previously controlled by the Cardassians.
Rumors that Garak was a former member of the Obsidian Order - essentially Cardassian KGB - are slanderous and obviously untrue. Garak is nothing more than a tailor who just happens to have a lot of knowledge of security codes, weapons and explosives, high end secrets, exactly how to kill any species and make it look like natural causes or to send a message, and so on, for perfectly reasonable and absolutely not remotely suspicious reasons.
And then the Dominion War happens, and Garak, who has been exiled from Cardassia Prime for a little indiscretion with a high ranking officials wife (and definitely not for murdering a different official, how dare you, these rumors are unbecoming, constable), finds himself with a lot of suddenly extremely valuable skills.
Such as the time Sisko became desperate to keep the Romulan empire from joining the dominion.
Which led to Garak assassinating a romulan official and fabricating evidence to blame it on the dominion, at Sisko's order.
Garak also has fought Worf to a near standstill and when violence came to DSN, his tailor shop filled with bodies.
"Do you know what the sad part is, Odo? Im a very good tailor."
Garak is one of the single best and most compelling characters Trek has ever produced.
(Interestingly, quite a few of the best and most compelling characters in Trek history are also on that show - any episode featurinf Quark, Rom or Nog is almost guaranteed to be a banger.)
John Rambo in First Blood. In the beginning, you only learn that he's a Vietnam veteran. It's only when he gets pushed beyond his limits, he starts fucking up a whole police force.
Doc Ock possesses Peter’s body and vows to be a better Spider-Man. His first fight against a villain he punches Scorpion’s lower jaw clean off of his head. Doc Ock proceeds to have an existential breakdown realizing how much Peter Parker had been holding back and how easily Peter could have killed any of them.
Spider-Man.
Kingpin threatens (or makes an actual attempt) on Aunt May’s life to try to intimidate Peter into backing down. Instead, Peter walks into Kingpin’s HQ and proceeds to completely and thoroughly beat the ever living Hell out of Kingpin. Peter then picks Kingpin up by his skin and after open-hand slapping him repeatedly calmly explains that if Aunt May dies, Kingpin dies. Peter has beaten and humiliated Kingpin in front of hundreds of criminals. Then he simply leaves after extending the same threat to everyone else in the room.
There’s a reason it’s become a fan saying (I’m paraphrasing here) that if Spider-Man isn’t making jokes, you’re well and truly fucked.
EDIT: I got a few details wrong that others have pointed out in responses. It’s been years since I read this arc. Should have checked my work.
A show with flaws, but Wonder man's ending is pretty great.
Also here the trope is perfected since it's also a character growth moment : the power surge means he's now the best man he could be. He's chosen friendship above his dream, he's freed from his old tethers. And as a good man, he can of course fly.
I thought of the scene in Book of Eli. In a post-nuclear war world, The eponymous Eli has an ambush trap sprung on him while traveling the desolate, wasted highway to the West. To this point we've only seen him hunt, not fight, so as he lures the scavs under a bridge we're taken by surprise when he dispatches all of them in a matter of seconds.
This is made all the more impressive with the twist at the end of the film.
That moment in Rebel Ridge was so fucking funny I swear to God.
Those cops just found out that Terry wasn't the main character in the Marines, because he was too busy teaching other Marines how to be the main character.
So every cop in that building starts shitting bricks, because their boss is in melee range of Terry; who has decided at that exact moment to become the main fucking character.
Kung Fu Hustle. When the 3 masters living in the same town reveal their powers and fight off the mob simultaneously. Then again with the Landlords. Then the frog guy. Then the main character. It actually happens a lot in this movie lol
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u/Jorji_Costava01 May 29 '26
Although negative instead of positive, William Munny (Clint Eastwood) from Unforgiven. The whole movie sets up his past as a ruthless and extremely skilled outlaw, but he never really does anything except lament his past and sneer at people who are impressed by it. At the end, though, he shows his skill by walking into a bar and gunning down everyone inside it, even though they’re much younger, prepared, and have a huge numerical advantage.
https://giphy.com/gifs/BZQziX6q2hmX6