Dogpile of Doom
A large number of mooks jump on the hero, pinning him down.
Usually it's a climactic battle scene. The hero is facing down dozens, no, hundreds, no, thousands of Mooks. At first, the hero's doing well. He's smiting them one after another. But then he begins to get tired, and first one, then another, then another and another and another leap onto him, dragging the poor guy to the ground.
Often, a bigger villain, such as the Big Bad or The Dragon, stands by and watches.
There are several ways that this scene can turn out:
Type A: The hero activates a super mode, has an epiphany, or otherwise becomes more Badass. He explodes out of the pile, minions scattering to the four winds, and rises as an epic figure. At this point the fight might continue, or the mooks might run away.
Type B: The hero is killed at the bottom of the pile.
Type C: Similar to B, except that the hero is captured instead of killed. This can mean assimilation, frozen in stasis, knocked unconscious, or simply dragged off to a prison cell.
Type D: A more humorous version, the hero simply gets out of the dogpile. This may involve Offscreen Teleportation, with the hero suddenly appearing to the side somewhere (or even on top of the pile), before the mooks even realize that he's gone and they've just been mobbing each other.
In order to qualify as a Dogpile of Doom, the hero should be completely covered in mooks. Just couple of guys jumping on top of the hero is not enough to qualify. Have you ever dropped a piece of food on an anthill? It's something like that.
Differs from the glomp, because the glomp is a sign of affection (even though the victim might not like it). The Dogpile of Doom is malicious, intended to kill or capture.
Often an Obligatory Joke in stories where American football is portrayed.
Technically, it doesn't have to be the he hero at the bottom of the pile. A whole bunch of good guy civilian mooks jumping on the Big Bad would also count as a Dogpile of Doom.
Anime and Manga
- Naruto attempted to do this to Zabuza in one episode, using his shadow clones. Unfortunately, Zabuza escaped, this being a Type A.
- Durarara!!: The Saikas tried this on Shizuo, who just lifted them up and tossed them off.
- In the Dragonball Z movie The Return of Cooler, both Vegeta and Goku are barely able to destroy one Metal Cooler, when they are overwhelmed by an army of them. After that, they were captured by Cooler. This makes it a Type C.
- In another Dragonball Z movie, Bardock: Father of Goku, Frieza's minions try a unique, mid-air variant on Bardock as he flies out of Planet Vegita's atmosphere. Being a type A situation, it fails.
- Mooks have attempted this trope on Zoro of One Piece...with little success. In fact, Zoro's first display of Badass was to block a dogpile of Marines- all armed with swords- with his Santoryu.
Zoro: The first one who moves...dies.
Marines: (Thinking) He's so scary...
- Type C happens to Germany in the Axis Powers Hetalia movie.
- A filler episode of Bleach has this happen to Ichigo by a group of Hollows Humerously, one is picking it's teeth until Ichigo pulls a Type A and send them flying.
Literature
- In the prologue of the novelization of Robotech the Invid are attacking a Zentraedi outpost, where a variation occurs. Dolza, who is at the base at the time, says that the base would undoubtedly be covered completely in Invid mecha "Like a lethal blanket of death."
- In Friday by Robert A. Heinlein, the eponymous Friday is captured in this way. Later "Boss" Baldwin says, "You killed two and injured three before they piled enough bodies on you to hold you down by sheer weight."
- The eponymous character of Brian Jacques' Martin the Warrior is mobbed by mooks when he attempts to help Feldoh's elderly father, who is being badly treated by the vermin overseers (as they are all three slaves at this point). Martin is literally described as having "disappeared" amid the mass, and the result is a Type C pile - dragged off to worse imprisonment than before.
- In HIVE, Raven gets taken down this way by ninja robot assassins. No, really. It's really the only acceptable way for a character as badass as she to get taken out.
Comics
- Subverted in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, during the fight with Lucas Lee's stunt team.
- This is a common occurrence in the comic Asterix.
- When Sal Buscema drew Spectacular Spider-Man in the 90's, he loved having fight scenes that depicted Type A.
- Type D occurs in Tintin in America. Tintin is falsely accused of being a bandit, and a group of yokels try to lynch him. After failing to do so repeatedly, they all descend on him in a dogpile, each wanting to be the next one to try. Tintin escapes by crawling out from underneath.
Film
- The Smiths do this to Neo in The Matrix Reloaded, leading to a Type A.
- In Mars Attacks!, Byron takes on the Martians hand-to-hand in order to buy time for the others to escape. This appears to be a type B, but he later appears with no explanation as to how he survived. It's notable that in the original script, he did die.
- The second Ninja Turtles live-action movie, has a Type D. A group of mooks do the dogpile on Michelangelo, only for him to climb out and look at the pile of still attacking thugs and mutter, "pitiful."
- Cleon of The Warriors gets dogpiled at the gang conclave. It's Type B, above.
- It's hard to categorize in an area of animation, as it is technically an Eastern, non-anime animation, but the Hong Kong animated film Color Old Master Q has this happen with the eponymous protagonist in a martial arts match, when a trio of robbers pile on him and start beating him up... only for the scrawny old man to slip out of the Big Ball of Violence wearing only his underpants and leave the robbers punching his clothes.
- The mall cops in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure use this method to apprehend Genghis Khan and Billy the Kid. (Not that any other way would have likely been feasible with those two...)
Professional Wrestling
Video Games
- In God of War III, enemies will frequently attempt this on Kratos, leading to Type A.
- A cutscene in Prototype has the basic infected do this to Alex. They get hit by Type A as he busts out the Armor and Blade powers. In gameplay, you can do something similar with the Knuckle Shockwave and a decent-sized group of infected.
- Mobs of zombies will often try this on Juliet in Lollipop Chainsaw, resulting in Type A or Type B, depending on the player's actions. A clear case of Double Entendre considering the type of character she is.
- Felicia from Darkstalkers has several companions of her own species (Alto, Grace, Lucy, Nana, Mimi, Nonno, and Piko) all of them acting as Assist Characters in several of her moves; in some games, her strongest move involves all of them ganging up on the opponent.
Web Comics
- The Order of the Stick has Belkar and Hobgoblins, where the Hobgoblins are helping to establish that Belkar is, in fact, A Sexy, Shoeless, God of War.
- In Homestuck, Dave Strider busts out from beneath a pile of puppets that land on him.
- Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff riffs on the trope's use in American football.
Hella Jeff: AHA, the sport pile doesnt stop from getting taller.
Western Animation
- Transformers Prime: Optimus and Ratchet are fighting an army of robot zombies, when this happens. Optimus bursts out and saves Ratchet.
- Danny Phantom: when Danny steals the exo-suit and fights the ghost army in Reign Storm, the ghost skeletons do this to Danny before he breaks out.
- Bugs Bunny pulled a Type D, naturally. He was jumped by several large dogs in an alley in A Hare Grows in Manhattan. In what is probably the Trope Namer, they attempt to dogpile him ("Dog pile on the rabbit! Dog pile on the rabbit!"), but in the end, it shows Bugs jumping up and down on the top of their pile chanting with them, leaving the leader of the dogs at the bottom.
- In It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown during the Homecoming Game every down where Charlie Brown's team has the ball ends up in a big pileup, usually with Charlie on the bottom. Including when he attempts to kick the ball, misses because Lucy pulls it away, and then they jump on him. This would be a roughing the kicker penalty at minimum if Charlie weren't such a Butt Monkey.
- In Superman: The Animated Series, several mooks try this on a young lady... which leads to the reveal that this young lady, is, in fact, Supergirl in her first appearance.
- A particularly hilarious example occurs in Codename: Kids Next Door episode Operation I.T. Numbuh 362 gets tired of being the supreme commander, and starts up a game of tag where whoever is "it" by noon gets to replace her. Strangely, nobody actually wants this position, so everyone begins to run and try to escape, however, once Numbuh 13 gets tagged, everyone around him immediately dog-piles onto him, screaming, "ANYONE BUT HIM!" because they'd rather tag themselves than let him become their leader.
- On an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, a doll gets turned into an Apple of Discord.[1] Big Macintosh has it, and he gets dogpiled by nearly every background pony. Type A then occurs as Big Macintosh literally sends them flying over the horizon after it's taken by the Mayor. In fact it doesn't even really work, as Big Mac is big enough that his head still sticks out of the top of the pile.
Truth in Television
- American Football. There will often be one guy who gets dogpiled by everyone else because he has the ball.
- In Rugby, this is called a Maul.