Board 8 > Best of the Trope Season 2: Day 189 - Squishy Wizard

(+) Yeah! (+)

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Best of the Trope!

Here are the rules. Each day, I will post a trope from TV Tropes, and each poster can name up to three examples of that trope. Whichever nomination gets the most mentions wins! Posters may also name as many Honourable Mentions as they like, but they are purely optional and will not count towards the running score. You may look at the TV Tropes page for that day's trope for examples, but you do not have to pick all your examples from the page. You can nominate whatever examples you like, as long as they qualify for the trope. Each trope will last around 24 hours before the next one goes up.

Posters may also nominate any tropes they wish to see come up during the series. This is optional, and you don't have to do it every day, or at all. Tropes will be randomly selected from the list each day, except for some occasions where I will pick a thematically appropriate trope that may or may not be on the list.

Here's the list of previous tropes, so if you wish to nominate some tropes, check on here that it wasn't previously done. http://board8.wikia.com/wiki/Best_of_the_Trope

Trope list:
That One Level
Game-Breaker
Cruel and Unusual Death
Magic Knight
The Reason You Suck Speech
Storming the Castle
Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence
Mentor Occupational Hazard
Clipped Wing Angel
Torch the Franchise and Run
Trash the Set
Grand Finale

The winner of yesterday's trope, Tier Induced Scrappy, was Meta Knight (Super Smash Bros Brawl), who got 9 votes.

Previous Winners: Day 151 Onwards
Despair Event Horizon - John Wick's dog is killed (John Wick)
A**hole Victim - Joffrey Baratheon (Game of Thrones)
Crutch Character - Marcus (Fire Emblem 7)
Your Soul is Mine - Maximillian Pegasus (Yu-Gi-Oh!) / Shang Tsung (Mortal Kombat) / Dementor's Kiss (Harry Potter)
Pop-Cultured Badass - Deadpool
Acquitted Too Late - Tom Robinson (To Kill a Mockingbird)
Lightning Bruiser - The Flash (DC Comics) / Bob Barker (Happy Gilmore)
Me's a Crowd - Naruto / Multiple Man (X-Men)
A Taste of Power - Samus (Metroid Series)
Shrinking Violet - Violet (The Incredibles)
Stone Wall - Shuckle (Pokemon)
One Scene Wonder - The Black Knight (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)
Magikarp Power - Magikarp (Pokemon) / Pawn (Chess)
Joke Character - Pichu (Super Smash Bros Melee) / Dan Hibiki (Street Fighter)
Lethal Joke Character - L-Block (GameFAQs Contests)
Stupid Statement Dance Mix - They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard / All Your Base
Giant Space Flea from Nowhere - Necron (Final Fantasy IX)
Roaring Rampage of Revenge - The Punisher (Marvel Comics) / John Wick / The Bride (Kill Bill)
Glass Cannon (Redux) - Tracer (Overwatch) / Hypno Disc (Robot Wars) / Nightmare (Battlebots)
Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome - Marie (The Bourne Supremacy)
Even the Girls Want Her - Lana Kane (Archer)
Even the Guys Want Him - Gaston (Beauty and the Beast) / Big Boss (Metal Gear Solid)
Mighty Glacier - Tohru (Jackie Chan Adventures)
Breather Boss - Morpha (Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) / Gi Nattak (Final Fantasy VII)
Big Bad Friend - Big Smoke (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas)
Launcher of a Thousand Ships - Nightwing (DC Comics)
Evil Cripple - Mr. Glass (Unbreakable)
Breather Level - 100 Acre Wood (Kingdom Hearts)
Beef Gate - Automatic 4-Star Wanted Level (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas)
One True Love - Buttercup and Westley (The Princess Bride) / Shrek and Fiona (Shrek)
Cliffhanger - The Snap (Avengers: Infinity War)
Anti-Climax Boss - Yu Yevon (Final Fantasy X)
Lights Off, Somebody Dies - Devil / Anthology of Interest (Futurama) / And Then There Was Shawn (Boy Meets World)
Broken Base - Sub VS Dub (Anime) / Original VS Reboot (Devil May Cry) / Country VS Pop (Taylor Swift) / Casual VS Competitive (Super Smash Bros) / Genwunners (Pokemon)
Difficult But Awesome - Ana (Overwatch)
Disc One Nuke - Hawlucha (Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon)
Lampshade Hanging - How did Yzma and Kronk get there first? (The Emperor's New Groove)

Today's trope is Squishy Wizard. Here is the link: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SquishyWizard

It seems that many who possess great magical, mental, or otherwise mystical might are also in the worst of shape. They may be sickly, horribly ill, crippled, or just physically weak and puny; in general, people who have reality-bending powers seem to suffer for it in other areas.

There are usually reasons. Powerful psychics may suffer from this, as they can do anything with their minds for what do they need their bodies? It may also be the result of a magical Old Master experiencing the declining health that comes with age. Alternatively, physical health can sometimes be traded for magical power, be it through a bargain of some sort or the use of very draining magic... or it may be more mundane: rather than go outside or exercise, the magicians spent all their time studying spells, and are thus very weak physicallynote . From a Doylist POV, it's about game balance. Without their physical weakness there often wouldn't be any reason not to use them.

In game mechanic terms, the Squishy Wizard is usually a Glass Cannon, being able to dole out big hurt but generally dying if a tough monster looks at it funny. Although Squishy Wizard is sometimes not completely Glass Cannon. They can have decent, or even good magical defense, to tank out other wizard (or a monster)'s spell, but a single punch and they're down already.

TL,DR: A character who is very powerful magically, but their physical strength is poor to compensate.

Nominations:
Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
Alakazam (Pokemon)
Babidi (Dragon Ball Z)

Alakazam
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Lulu (Final Fantasy X)
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Vivi (FF9) (not sure why he is not listed as an example, I think he qualifies more than Lulu since you can use sphere grids to raise her stats)
Luc (Suikoden series)
Micaiah (Fire emblem Radiant Dawn) Mainly for the time my husband played and she was really blessed. :)
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Zatanna (DC)
Yuna (FFX)
Alice (Shadow Hearts)
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GavsEvans123 posted...

Alakazam (Pokemon)

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Aang (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
Professor X (X-Men)
Scarlet Witch (Marvel)
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Hermione Granger
Vivi

Donald Duck
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Alakazam
Vivi
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Rankings so far:
Alakazam (Pokemon) - 4 votes
Vivi (FF9) - 3 votes
Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
Babidi (Dragon Ball Z)
Lulu (Final Fantasy X)
Luc (Suikoden series)
Micaiah (Fire emblem Radiant Dawn)
Zatanna (DC)
Yuna (FFX)
Alice (Shadow Hearts)
Aang (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
Professor X (X-Men)
Scarlet Witch (Marvel)
Hermione Granger (Harry Potter)
Donald Duck (Kingdom Hearts)

Black Mage (8-Bit Theatre)
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