The Worf Effect/Sandbox



""He's the guy who's here to act tough so new characters can wreck him when they're introduced thus proving to the rest of us how amazing they are! Like Wolverine or Worf.""

- Red Mage, Eight Bit Theater

Want a quick way to show how dangerous one of your unknown characters is? Simple, make him win a fight or score points against a character (we'll call him "Worf") the audience already knows is tough. This establishes him as willing to fight and marks him as being as dangerous as you want him to be. For new villains, it's common for them to pick up the toughest character among the heroes and hurl him across the room or otherwise take him out in one blow, thus showing that they are the real deal. "Wow, he just beat up Worf! He must be really Badass!" Of course, if the same character is repeatedly used as the target of displays like these, it can result in Badass Decay, and if abused, his toughness could become an Informed Ability.

Worf Had the Flu is sometimes used to justify Worf's defeat. A Worf Barrage is when an "ultimate" attack or technique is defeated this way instead of a character. If a new villain introduces himself by beating the previous villain, that's Make Way for the New Villains (a Sub-Trope). When Worf gets beaten emotionally rather than physically, that's Break the Badass.

Compare Badass in Distress and The World's Expert on Getting Killed, both of which can overlap. Killing off a Red Shirt or two is a slightly different method for achieving a similar effect. If the character beats up a whole army's worth of Worfs, Conservation of Ninjutsu is probably at work.

Named for the tendency in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for hostile creatures to do that very thing to Worf.

No Real Life Examples, Please.