Shoulders of Doom: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|''"For the body, notice they don't have shoulder pads, which is something that everybody seem to love to put on soldiers in video games. I don't know why. I don't know if they think that soldiers will be tackling people."''|'''Ted Backman''', ''[[Half Life|Half-Life 2: Raising The Bar]]''}}

** Notably, Gohan and Krillin once used sets of these armor, and Gohan noted that the shoulders ''don't'' get in the way because the material is flexible enough.

*** Later on, Gohan get another set of these, alongside a [[Badass Cape]], when he request a set of clothes designed just like Piccolo's.

* At least two villains in ''[[Trigun]]''. Legato adds mass to his shoulder with a human skull. Brilliant Dynamites Neon's shoulderpads are both nearly the size of his torso, and they glow.

** In the manga and anime, BDN's shoulderpads contain large-bore machine guns for a suprise edge in fights.

* Subverted in ''[[Record of Lodoss War]]'', where [[The Chick]] Deedlit is the one with arguably the biggest shoulder-wear. (Of course, ''everyone'' in Lodoss has huge shoulder guards.)

* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' - Seto Kaiba has these weird pointed-shoulder things for his cape. Here, [http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs42/f/2009/137/3/f/Seto_Kaiba_demotivational_by_randomgibberish.jpg take a look].

* Worn in [[Yaiba]] by almost every villain.

* A given in [[Eyeshield 21]] since all the major characters are football players. If anything, many of the antagonists appear to have ''smaller'' shoulder pads, because their bigger builds make the shoulder pads stand out less.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** [[Space Marine]] [[Power Armor]] is famous for its big honkin' shoulders, as seen above, though this is justified in the background - their armor was originally designed for close-quarters combat, and the shoulders plates are auto-responsive and shift when the wearer wants to look past them. [[Evil Counterpart|Chaos Space Marines]] add [[Spikes of Villainy]] to theirs.

** Tau combat armor sports one over-sized ''[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Sode_(armour) sode]''-style shoulder pad, the strategic positioning of which is part of their firing stance.

** [[State Sec|Inquisitors]]' power armor usually has more subdued, but very intricate shoulder pieces clearly inspired by Roman ''[[wikipedia:Lorica segmentata|lorica segmentata]]''.

* Prince Vladimir Tzepesci of the ''[[Iron Kingdoms]]'', a Khadoran warcaster based on [[Dracula|Vlad Tepes]], has very large shoulder pads on his armor; his more experienced Epic version takes this to ridiculous extremes. This has given him the [[Fan Nickname]] of "Captain No-Peripheral Vision".

** It's not just the Capitol troopers, although they have the most ridiculous variant (they even wear giant shoulderpads, with no visible way of how they are actually worn, when they put on their normal uniforms without any chest plates etc). Imperial is also fairly guilty of this trope, with their Trenchers having pads that are almost as wide as their bodies. Doorways in Imperial facilities must be quite wide as a result. Also, the actual metal miniatures for the Dark Legion's Necromutants have only one "turtle shell"-style shoulder pad, but it is even bigger.

* Major Q9 in ''[[Heroscape]]'' is a soulborg with pauldrons that are the size of his freaking body and tower over his head, almost like the forbidden love child between Shoulders of Doom and [[Eva Fins]]. Deathwalker 9000 has some pretty wicked shoulders going on, too.

** Interestingly, in New Vegas, the strength of a power armor is apparently inversely proportional to the doominess of its Shoulders of Doom - the t-45d, with its ridiculous duck fin shoulderpads, is the weakest; the T-51b Power armor is the middle of the road, with oversized Knight Armor shoulderpads; the Advanced Power Armor and Tesla Armor are the strongest, and the shoulders themselves are fairly small. Though in the case of the Advanced and Tesla armors, it has traded the Shoulders of Doom for a massive hunchback.

* Heck, the primary purpose of most [[Powered Armor|power armor]] seems to be giant shoulders.

** And in the sequel, contrary to the page quote Tychus ''does'' actually make two attempts at tackling people. One successful, one not as much.

* The more recent ''[[Command & Conquer]]'' games seem to be [[Follow the Leader|using this trope, too]], much to the [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks|chagrin]] of old-time fans.

* The [[Big Bad]]s of the ''[[Elder Scrolls]]'' series rarely have large shoulders, but the PC can wear the dremora's diabolical looking pauldrons. The Orcs wear the biggest shoulders of all, inverting [[Spikes of Villainy]] as their shoulders grew spikier while they developed from [[Exclusively Evil]] to [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|ProudWarriorRaceGuys]].

* ''[[F-Zero]]'' - Deathborn posesses a large pair of pauldrons, to fit the [[Omnicidal Maniac]] title.

* ''[[Guilty Gear]]'' - [[SNK Boss|Justice]] has them. They transform into laser cannons during her [[That One Attack|Gamma Ray]] super.

* Subverted with Darkrai from ''[[Pokémon]]'', who appears to be sinister-looking but only does its job if it is threatened. Played straight in the ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]]'' series games, however.

* The Arishok in ''[[Dragon Age II]]''.

* Heavy armor in ''[[Starsiege: Tribes|Tribes Ascend]]''. Previous games had this to a lesser degree, but ''Ascend'' takes it to [http://i.imgur.com/TMkhQ.jpg a whole new level]. The shoulders are even ''bigger'' in-game.

* ''[[Gears of War]]'' plays this straight and averts this depending on the example. The "standard" COG armor has prominent shoulder pads, but they're still reasonably proportional. The most notable example that's played straight is Tai Kaliso's armor in Gears 2, which has an inexplicably huge shoulder guard on the right side. Largely averted in Gears 3 because very few characters have any armor on their arms at all.

* Gilgamesh Wulfenbach of ''[[Girl Genius]]'' gets some pretty bitchin' spiky shoulder pads [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080512 here].

** Later Agatha [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20120425 tries on some "armor"], with one like this on panel 4.

* ''[[The Noob]]'' gives us [http://www.thenoobcomic.com/index.php?pos=355 this].

* Byron the Berserker from ''Guilded Age'' claims [http://guildedage.net/webcomic/chapter-6/chapter-6-page-19/ this guy's] pauldrons, even though he normally has his axe handles sticking up over his shoulders.

* [[The Forties]] and [[The Eighties]].

* The Roman [[wikipedia:Lorica segmentata|''lorica segmentata'']] features small but incredibly iconic shoulder guards.

 

{{reflist}}