Scary Impractical Armor: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"I am a monster truck that walks like a man!"''|''[[Zero Punctuation
Armor with loads of flashy things that look intimidating, but it often looks more useful than it actually is. It has loads of [[Spikes of Villainy]], [[Shoulders of Doom]], and often [[Nothing but Skulls|some skulls]].
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[[Animated Armor]] made from this kind of suit of course has none of the mobility problems a human would have, probably due to lacking any structure without the armor to begin with. [[A Wizard Did It]] indeed. Similarly made more plausible by [[Powered Armor]] in sci-fi settings.
Sometimes an [[Evil Overlord]] will wear this [[24-Hour Armor|even when]] [[Orcus
Cursed variations may become a highly impractical [[Clingy Costume]].
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* In ''[[Dai no Daibouken]]'', Dai buys an impossibly cool armor which turns out to be horribly impractical. He ends up throwing half of it away so it fits better.
** The armor itself is normal. The problem is that Dai is a [[Kid Hero]] who is about a head and a half shorter than regular cast, trying to equip adult-sized armor.
* [[Saint Seiya]] progressively becomes like this. In the final parts of the series, we see stuff like [http://saintseiyaperfil.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/esquema_hypnos.jpg this]{{Dead link}}. Must be noted that even the weakest of the Cloths are powerful magical artifacts.
* Naga from ''[[Slayers]]'', has spikes on the shoulders of her armour that she ends up injuring herself with every time she raises her arms.
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* [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]] villain Stryfe wore a suit of armour that looked like it was made out of blades, giving many readers the impression that he'd decapitate himself if he ever shrugged his shoulders.
** Partially justified in that Stryfe is a world-class telepath and telekinetic (which is saying something in the Marvel world). His armor is ''meant'' to be scary and impractical, because not only does he not need to move to attack his enemies, he doesn't actually need the armor, since wrapping his own telekinesis around his body is more effective. And he is aware of both facts.
* The final batsuit worn Jean Paul Valley, aka [[Azrael]], during the [[Knightfall]] arc qualifies. [http://media.comicmix.com/media/2009/06/04/azbat-2.jpg At first it mainly added gauntlets with projectile shooters, extra chest armor, a glider cape, and other bits of tech]{{Dead link}}. Towards the end of the arc, as Jean Paul was going insane, [http://i458.photobucket.com/albums/qq306/modesty_011/555-1.jpg he added more armor, added ammo feed belts for his gauntlets connecting to a drum on his back, and ditched the cape for a set of metal fins.] And of course, being the 90's, the suit had brighter colors, particularly after it was set of fire, revealing a red and yellow paint scheme underneath, despite the role of Batman requiring stealth. As Bruce noted when he had to fight Jean Paul to get him under control, the armor hampered his mobility, making him slow and awkward.
* [[Batman|Mr. Freeze]] is often shown in suits of armour that are incredibly large and bulky and look like big badass robots. They do their job [[An Ice Person|keeping him cool]], the problem is that some are so wide in the shoulder/chest that for the rather average built Freeze to wear them and actually move his arms would have to be cut off and stuffed in the sleeves. In his later appearance in the 90s animated series he adopted a very broad look but it was justified: His body was robotic and his only living flesh was a head in a jar.
== [[Film]] ==
* Sauron in ''[[The Lord of the Rings (
** Ah, but in the book, Gollum specifically says that now he only has nine fingers, and the armor...well, blew up in the movie.
*** The books say that Sauron's physical form during that time was that of a man who had been burned to ashes, but was still alive, and in general was brick shittingly horrifying to look at. Also, considering that the armour the actor portraying Sauron was wearing was actually usable and fairly flexible, this is more of a subversion, since John Howe went to great lengths to stress the idea that all the armour in the movies ''must'' work properly.
** This trope was lampshaded by the artists, however, as they joked that Howe specialized in scary-looking outfits with [[Spikes of Villainy]] that "could poke your eye out." But he did indeed go to great lengths to actually make it possible to even move your fingers without slicing an artery.
* The Green Goblin's armor in the first ''[[Spider
** Given Spidey once exploded a telephone booth from the inside, and Norman Osborne has only slightly superhuman strength, he probably would've been reduced to a pulp fairly quickly without the armor.
* In ''[[
* Similarly, in ''[[
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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* The Dark Eldar of ''[[Warhammer
** Given their proclivities, armour that cuts the wearer up a bit whilst in use is probably approved of.
** They put it on by hooking it into their skin.
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*** Somewhat justified by alot of those horns coming out of their armor [[Red Right Hand|are actually part of their bodies]].
** Ork mega-armor and vehicle/walker armor tends to live up to this trope, partly due to deliberately being intimidating and partly because they're pretty terrible at creating anything actually practical.
* The First and Forsaken Lion, one of the Deathlords in ''[[Exalted]]'', has gigantic soulsteel armor covered in spikes and skulls and anything else intimidating and impractical. It's not like he has much choice to change it out for something more efficient, though, as the Neverborn basically welded him into it after he screwed up his initial plan for world domination.
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* The Lich King from the ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' expansion has what looks like Sauron's armor with a few nips and tucks (and skulls. Loads and loads of skulls.), although since neither are human, armor like that is at least justified.
** Most of the high level armors count really. They tend to have pauldrons that raise higher then the PC's head (sometimes by almost a whole foot) and make the PC wearing it look twice wider then he is.
*** And as the character moves in various ways, the shoulders often clip through the body in ways that should result in impromptu decapitation or brain surgery. An [[Egregious]] example is the night elf female, who due to an unfortunate combat stance when wielding two handed axes, swords, or maces will spend most of the fight with their shoulder spikes embedded in their face.
* Intentionally averted by the designers of ''[[Half Life]] 2''. The Combine don't care about intimidation and just wear practical outfits - which makes them significantly scarier.
** Except Elites which wear snow-white armor with a [[Cyber Cyclops|single red eye]].
** Their armor is all black and strongly resembles swat team armor, so they probably care a little about being intimidating.
* ''[[ADOM]]'' has a version that is actually more impractical than scary. Moloch armour weighs a ton and gives huge penalties to speed, dexterity and defense (which is not what heavy armour usually grants anyway) as well as attacks. The only positive quality is that it has an even more enormous bonus to protection. As for scariness, the armour ''is'' the (dead) moloch, and they are certainly scary enough, both according to their descriptions and when they lumber towards you to punch you hard enough to shatter stone, or at least to take away a lot of hit points.
* Raider armors from ''Fallout 3'' fit this trope to a T. They are made mostly from stuff like old tires, leather and the occasional scrap metal; as such, they provide very little protection but significant intimidation factor. ''The Pitt'' DLC adds the [http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110709193503/fallout/images/a/a4/Fo3TP_Tribal_T45D_Power_Armor.png Tribal Power Armor]{{Dead link}} which is both scary AND practical. The ''Broken Steel'' DLC's Hellfire Armor ups the ante one degree more as it's both scary, practical AND cool.
** In fact, the Enclave likes to build badass armors, as evident from [http://s460.photobucket.com/albums/qq326/DELTA_1551/armor2.jpg this] scan.
* ''[[Myth]]'''': The Fallen Lords'' has this with [[Big Bad|Balor]]. Not only was his armor [[Spikes of Villainy|spikey]], its protective qualities were completely redundant considering how many magical dreams of protection he had woven about himself (which is also the reason most other arch mages in the setting never bother wearing armor.) Balor wore it just for the [[Card-Carrying Villain|intimidation factor]].
* ''[[Prototype (
* [[Statistically Speaking|Given the interrogation bonus they give, and their non existent armor rating]], Death Squad uniforms from [[Liberal Crime Squad]] are this, but since it's an ASCII game, it's hard to tell otherwise.
* War from ''[[Darksiders]]'' has armor so ridiculously elaborate, it takes Yahtzee the ''entire second page'' of his [https://web.archive.org/web/20100712085707/http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/7071-Extra-Punctuation-Darksiders.2 Extra Punctuation] article to describe in detail.
* In ''[[Command
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In the ''[[
** The Fire Nation ''used'' to follow this trope, with utterly impractical shoulder spikes. Sokka points this out when a group of water-benders are dressing up in 80-year old Fire Nation armor in an attempt to infiltrate the enemy army.
** The armor that {{spoiler|Phoenix King Ozai}} wears in the finale looks very heavy and unwieldly. This is likely why his first move in his battle with Aang is to [[The Coats Are Off|take it all off]].
* ''[[
* In one story arc of ''[[Darkwing Duck]]'', Gosalyn is transported into a future where Darkwing becomes unquestioned dictator of the world. In order to make her his ultimate successor, he gives her gifts, including a very imposing scary suit of battle armour. The only drawback to it was that she wasn't able to move. But she sure looked impressive.
== Meta ==
* In fact, many [[Evil Overlord
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[[Category:Tropes in Shining Armor]]
[[Category:Improbable Appearance Tropes]]
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