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Basic Trope: A woman either declares by oath, or is forced by law, to marry/have sex with someone that defeats her.
- Straight: Action Girl Alice has to/will only marry an Action Hero. Enter Bob, the only man who is stronger, faster, and all around more capable than her, and who bests her in combat. She marries him.
- Exaggerated: Alice, a Superpower Lottery winner, meets Bob, who is practically a Physical God, and who not only defeats her in combat but rapes her. Her magic vow makes her fall in love with him.
- Downplayed: Alice is beaten by Bob in combat. She offers to buy him a drink as a reward.
- Justified:
- Alice has realized the implications of orgasm in those with Super Strength, and is using 'able to beat me' as a rough way to determine if a potential love interest could survive sex with her. For greater awkwardness, her invulnerability also means that her 'nice tender lovemaking' is a normal person's 'rough sex.'
- Lovers usually share a lot of common interest, and for Alice, bodybuilding and martial artist are two of her greatest passions,so she will only marry a man who is related to those things. Being that so, if a man wants to have anything with her, he must be up to the challenge and prove himself worthy, and besides, the part after the defeat open up the posibility for many kinds of kinky followup roleplays
- It's a Secret Test of Character: If they really love each other, they'll hold back enough that neither is seriously injured.
- Alice comes from a Proud Warrior Race who believe that you can only know everything about someone through fighting them.
- Inverted:
- Unassuming Distressed Damsel Alice may only marry someone that is MORE helpless and danger prone than she is. She meets Bob, a Distressed Dude.
- After Bob bests her in combat, Alice must kill him to reclaim her honor or her clan will shun her.
- Subverted:
- Action Girl Alice meets Bob, the only man who is stronger, faster, and all around more capable than her, and who bests her in combat. She refuses to obey the rule/oath, runs away from him.
- Alice acts like The Red Sonja, but is actually a Black Widow who uses it as a way of weeding out men who might be a danger to her and killing them at their most vulnerable.
- Double Subverted:
- ...Because she was disappointed that he refused to marry her.
- ...Until she falls In Love with the Mark, and can't bring herself to kill him. Fortunately the clan law has an escape clause stating she can reclaim her honor by bringing him back alive and as her husband.
- Parodied: Alice can only have sex with men who defeat her...at strip poker.
- Deconstructed: Alice is in love with Bob. Bob is in love with Alice. They can't get married because the law says she can only marry a man who defeats her: he's a wimpy Muggle and she has Full-Contact Magic.
- Reconstructed: The law doesn't say what he has to defeat her in. They agree on tick tack toe.
- Zig Zagged: Alice had a number of paramours over her lifetime, some who beat her in combat, some who didn’t, and at least one who did defeat her but was so Gonk Alice refused him.
- Alternatively: The law has a lot of loopholes, allowing Alice to have a lot of different paramours over her lifetime. Some who beat her in combat, some who didn’t, and at least one who did defeat her but was so Gonk Alice refused him.
- Averted:
- Alice and Bob are equally strong.
- Alice has no love interest.
- Alice falls in love with a quiet, sensitive Non-Action Guy.
- Enforced: The author has a thing for this kind of character.
- Lampshaded: "You bested me in combat, so you can have my heart!"
- Invoked: A curse is placed on Alice so that she can only be with a man if he bests her in combat first.
- Exploited: Emperor Evulz bests Alice in combat, knowing that she would have to marry him for doing so.
- Defied: Alice outright refuses to do her dating based on trial by combat.
- Discussed: "I don't think martial combat is a healthy basis for a relationship..."
- Conversed: Two Straw Feminists talk about the misogynist implications of the trope.
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