Dramatic Thunder: Difference between revisions

Nothing says "This is dramatic, ominous and/or heavy foreshadowing!" like an ionic ground-to-air charge-release -- inrelease—in other words, lightning, and the accompanying thunder. Whether underlining the villain's apparent success, or the [[Big Damn Heroes|heroes' last-second arrival]], you can just bet that the thunder is anything but a random result of the global weather-system.

# In '''The Thunderous Confrontation''', a fierce thunderstorm provides an appropriately chaotic background to a battle -- ofbattle—of weapons or of wills. Usually, it will be the final, climactic confrontation between hero and villain, and you can just bet that the weather will clear up as soon as the hero's won. Frequently, the thunderstorm will play an active part in the battle, with lightning striking exposed targets, starting fires, causing trees to fall, or just making the Airborne Cavalry unable to come to the hero's aid. Almost always played straight.

* In episode 20 of ''[[Noir]],'' after the two titular assassins have just finished a running battle across the rooftops of Paris against a small army of suit-wearing killers with creepy masks, Chloe makes her appearance, standing [[I Have the High Ground|on top of a chimney]] -- with—with a flash of lightning behind her. Which is a good tipoff that something important is about to happen, considering that Chloe usually favors the [[Stealth Hi Bye]].

* ''[[The Phantom Tollbooth]]'': [[Dramatic Thunder]] occurs whenever Milo announces that he's going to the Castle in the Air.

* One of the posters in ''[[The Return of Hanuman]]'' uses [[Dramatic Thunder]] to indicate the antagonists of the movie.

* Until recently, Count von Count from ''[[Sesame Street]]'' had [[Dramatic Thunder]] accompanying the final result as he finished his counts... a few years ago, it was discontinued since it might scare children, however, and now only appears on special occasions.

* In the "Subspace Emissary" of ''[[Super Smash Bros.]] Brawl'', {{spoiler|[[Dramatic Thunder]] appears behind Wario, after he has captured Ness' trophy and Lucas runs away}}.

* The webcomic ''[[A Miracle of Science]]'' has the Mad Scientist Dr. Haas living on a partially-[[Terraform|terraformedterraform]]ed Venus, where it rains almost all the time -- providingtime—providing plentiful Dramatic Thunder for his Mwa-Ha-Ha's and declarations of "I'll show them ALL!". Even if he's indoors without any windows around.

* In ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 3: Snake Eater'', The Sorrow is established to have limited weather-control abilities. In the webcomic ''[[The Last Days of Foxhound]]'', he's occasionally seen applying this ability to provide appropriate emphasis for either his own words or a dramatic confrontation -- whichconfrontation—which does, incidentally, border on Thunderous Confrontation territory.

=== Examples of Thunderous Confrontation: ===

* In one of the chapters of [[Don Rosa|Don Rosa's]] classic ''[[The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck]]'', Scrooge fights a duel with swords against the scion of the Whiskervilles -- ancestralWhiskervilles—ancestral enemies of the McDuck clan, while a thunderstorm rolls across the Scottish Highlands. The thunderstorm, as it turns out, plays a key role in the end of the duel...

* Played quite straight in ''[[Kung Fu Panda]]'': as the villagers evacuate the Valley of Peace and Shifu waits outside the Jade Palace for Tai Lung, ominous storm clouds are gathering. By the time their inevitable fight has intensified and the snow leopard kicks Shifu out through the roof, dramatic lightning bolts are streaking across the sky. What makes this interesting, though, is how it plays with the trope: instead of the Thunderous Confrontation being between the hero and the villain, it's between the villain and the [[Old Master]]. And while the weather does clear up to become beautifully sunny, this coincides not with the hero's victory, but his arrival at the battle scene to save his master. In all likelihood this is meant to imply Po's wisdom in interpreting the Dragon Scroll, granting him the knowledge and power to win, somehow mystically dispelled the storm--particularlystorm—particularly since with the passing of the darkness, the snow leopard's attacks somehow seem weaker and more foolish, and Po has a much easier time of it than Shifu did. Rather [[Anvilicious]], but quite effective nevertheless.

** For a Disney production, the storm is built up to in a surprisingly subtle way -- Kimway—Kim's hair begins gently blowing in the wind in a previous scene, and later clouds slowly roll into view through a background window.

* The big fight in ''[[Hancock]]'' was punctuated by ''thundersnow'', mixing the [[Dramatic Thunder]] and {{spoiler|[[Snow Means Love]]}}.

* The book ''[[Watership Down]]'' has some working to Bigwig's advantage -- headvantage—he takes a stand against Woundwart during the initial escape from Efrafa, with lightning blazing down just before Keehar shows up.

* Even ''[[Bully (video game)|Bully]]'' couldn't escape this -- thethis—the Final Confrontation, up and down the sides of the school's belltower, is accompanied by a well-timed thunderstorm. And flocks of black crows, just for good measure

** Though not the final boss of ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess|The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess]]'', the boss fight of the final "regular" dungeon has Link [[Colossus Climb|Colossus Climbing]]ing a giant flying dragon atop the [[High Altitude Battle|tallest tower]] of a [[Floating Continent|sky castle]]. Needless to say, the thunderstorm in the background somehow made that fight even more epic.