Tropedia

  • All unique and most-recently-edited pages, images and templates from Original Tropes and The True Tropes wikis have been copied to this wiki. The two source wikis have been redirected to this wiki. Please see the FAQ on the merge for more.

READ MORE

Tropedia
WikEd fancyquotesQuotesBug-silkHeadscratchersIcons-mini-icon extensionPlaying WithUseful NotesMagnifierAnalysisPhoto linkImage LinksHaiku-wide-iconHaikuLaconic

A character gradually accumulates Amusing Injuries over the course of a story, but rather than shrug them off, he shows the traces of every one of them, and ends up a bleeding, black-eyed Implacable Man limping toward his goal. He quite literally looks like the world has chewed him up and spat him back out.

Expect a lot of Clothing Damage, and an attitude of Tranquil Fury. Can be just as easily Played for Laughs or Played for Drama - the latter can work as a subversion of Just a Flesh Wound, as it shows that what doesn't kill you can still slow you down a hell of a lot.

Rasputinian Death is a subtrope where the injuries are each of the No One Could Survive That variety, and the final fatality actually sticks.

Compare: Crush Parade when characters and objects are repeatedly run over and trampled by different things; Scars Are Forever when a character bears the marks of past injuries for the rest of his life.

Examples of Mutilation Conga include:


Anime and Manga[]

  • Happens to virtually every male main character in Ranma ½ at some point in the series.

Comic Books[]

Fanfic[]

  • Happens to the hero of Sleeping with the Girls over the course of his adventures, and manages to be played for both Drama and Laughs at the same time.

Film[]

Cquote1

 T-800: I need a vacation.

Cquote2

Literature[]

Live Action TV[]

Professional Wrestling[]

  • WWE's revival of ECW had Colin Delaney, a Jobber who would take brutal beatings and come out wearing more and more bandages every week.

Video Games[]

  • The health meter in Doom was a picture of a guy's face getting progressively bloodier and beaten up the more damage the player took.
  • The gun-toting mugger in Deja Vu suffers from this. Each of his first three confrontations can and should end with a punch to the face, and he gets both eyes swollen and a bloody nose before the fourth time, when such a punch gets you shot.
  • Max Payne is a non-comedic example.
  • Recurring Boss examples include Klungo in Banjo Tooie and King Bulblin in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Web Original[]

Western Animation[]

  • Homer Simpson has this happen multiple times, from the classic "Springfield Gorge" aftermath, and the time he tried to prove to Marge he loved her and ended up going through a bed of roses before falling out the aeroplane.
  • This sometimes happened to Finn in Adventure Time.
  • One Tom and Jerry cartoon had Tom showing the cumulative effects of each bit of comic mayhem befalling him - completely atypical of the usual business.