All Monks Know Kung Fu/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A Catholic friar knows martial arts.

  • Straight: Father Paul is skilled at close-quarters combat, particularly unarmed.
  • Exaggerated: An altar boy is able to fend off a team of ninjas with energy blasts and an impromptu candlestick-staff.
  • Justified:
    • Father Paul toured the world to learn about other religions, and at one point stayed at a Xiaolin monastery.
    • Life in a monestary is rather dull, so to pass the time as well as get some exercise, Father Paul and his fellow monks take time off each day to practice martial arts.
  • Inverted: Master Xing, a Xiaolin monk, doesn't know any martial arts and spends most of his days copying holy scripts.
  • Subverted: Father Paul gets into position for a crane kick... and promptly ends up falling ass over elbow, just managing to scrape his opponent through sheer luck.
  • Double Subverted: It turns out Paul is just faking incompetence so he can surprise his opponent later.
  • Parodied: Paul enrolls in seminary and finds out that 80% of the classes are martial arts-oriented.
  • Deconstructed:
    • Monasteries experience heightened governmental surveillance out of fears that this martial arts expertise is a prelude to full-blown militant movements.
    • Alternatively: Pilgrimages and cultural exchanges with Eastern cultures to learn from the masters of martial arts expertise results in changes of a Western religion's culture as they are influenced by Asian dress or even philosophy.
    • Another alternative: Bad guys come and thoroughly mop the floor with the monks, unironically, despite said monks pulling off their martial art in perfect form. Cue credit roll.
    • A Merciful Warlord comes to the monastery, uses disproportionate force, and slaughters all the monks. She assumed they could and would defend themselves.
  • Reconstructed:
    • Heightened governmental surveillance prompts Western monks to take up Kung Fu, fearing imminent persecution by the government or general public.
    • As soon as the warlord leaves, the monks use the legendary Wush of Resurrection to revive.
  • Zig Zagged: Father Paul gets into position for a crane kick... and promptly ends up falling ass over elbow, just managing to scrape his opponent through sheer luck. But it turns out he's simply faking incompetence so he can surprise his opponent later. When he gets serious, he... still barely manages to succeed in any maneuver, just fails less spectacularly.
  • Averted: Father Paul does not know martial arts.
  • Enforced: Father Paul is an Ensemble Darkhorse, but can't defend himself from the enemies that the main characters tend to fight. In order to expand his role, he's given martial arts skills.
  • Lampshaded: "Who knew that Catholic monks were taught martial arts?"
  • Invoked: The Hero carries out Training the Peaceful Villagers and among his disciples are Western monks.
  • Defied: The combat master refuse to teach Paul or any monks.
  • Discussed: Someone reads a history book on the Crusades and talks about how surprising it was to find so many actual monks fought in combat. He wonders if they practiced any martial arts.
  • Conversed: "Why can't these writers tell the difference between Xiaolin monks and friars?"
  • Played For Laughs: Numerous martially-adept holy men join forces to form a campy, religion-themed hero team.
  • Played For Drama: Father Paul uses his impressive fighting skills to rescue a member of his congregation from a killer, but accidentally kills the attacker. Father Paul spends many, many years seeking absolution.
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