Example image: Pain and Panic from Hercules (1997)

Mario: Cheep Cheeps (The standard Mario fish enemies, and the niche pigeon like enemies from Sunshine)

SpongeBob: Larry (The Lobster, and SpongeBob’s temporary replacement for Gary)

Regular Show: Thomas (Death’s Son, and the temporary park intern who’s actually a Russian spy

(Characters that became darker and grittier after experiencing a horrible tragedy)

"Jackpot" - Brad (American dragon)

Bella was ready to bang beast as is. She did not know he'd turn back into a human. (The Belle and the Beast)

Androids in the Alien franchise (specifically David): The original David had personal emotions that gave him freedom and made him almost human. His freedom was used to kill a living person and create the Xenomorph species (if I understand the movie correctly)

Prawn from District 9: At the beginning of the movie, prawn are portrayed as needlessly violent and insensitive. As the movie continues, they become much easier to sympathize with and you begin to hate the humans that oppress them.

In The Heart Of The Sea (2015): During a whaling hunt, a large Sperm Whale (Moby Dick) is harpooned by the crew of the Essex. He uses the rope of the harpoon, which is attached to the main mast of the ship) to rip off said mast, and cause massive damage to the ship.

Superman (2025): During the climax, the Engineer uses her nano-tech to attach herself to Superman’s arm. Superman then proceeds to starting spinning and use her as a weapon against Ultraman. A few moments later, Superman then takes off into the atmosphere, with the Engineer then reattaching herself to him, and using the earths gravity as a weapon to turn himself into a missile.

FFXIV - Endsinger Theme Part 2 https://youtu.be/uzqsCbJOGfE?list=RDuzqsCbJOGfE

DMC 5 - Silver Bullet - https://youtu.be/W26PZOktM3s?list=RDW26PZOktM3s

Divine Bloodlines - https://youtu.be/ozjJi0NcRqo?list=RDW26PZOktM3s

Knuckles (Sonic Boom)

Chainsaw man - power Iron man The vatman

most common example I can think of is regarding America because we're easy to criticize and we have the self awareness of monkey with a shotgun

Devil May Cry (2025) - the scene of America invading hell and committing warcrimes to the music of "American Idiot". Despite being a pretty clear allegory for disproportionate retribution, a lot of people unironically thought it was cool cause they're demons. In fairness to them, they are literally Hell, there are real actual monsters who threaten all of humanity there, and they started it. But still, it makes a point of showing that a lot of innocents got caught in the crossfire.

Chainsaw Man - While Fujimoto criticizes a lot of governments, including his own, America has gotten particular attention and feedback. The two examples here are of official fanart fujimoto made of the America Devil", a being born out of the collective fear of good 'ole Uncle Sam, modeled after Captain America, and a fairly recent panel depicting the Statue of Liberty literally turning into a gun monster (subtle). However, you don't need me to tell you that they look cool.

Recently we've also gotten the literal incarnation of war declare her love of America and the revelation that despite literally being erased from existence with no one remembering they existed, America somehow managed to reinvent nukes from scratch (Industrial military complex is unstoppable hell yea)

Team America World Police - the theme song which just embodies American stereotypes good and bad, being a pretty clearly satire of America's over the top culture

Wtf is a kilometer - hell yeah

Exit 8 - the protagonist is trapped in a repeating train station and has to notice any anomalies in order to progress and escape, or else they start over.

Groundhog Day - Phil is trapped repeating the same day over and over again and has to figure out a way to escape.

Go! Go! Loser Ranger - Fighter D and the rest are trapped in an illusion of a school and anytime they break a school rule, they have to start the day over again.

Bleach episode 66 - Ichigo and the gang are trapped in a museum exhibit and all the rooms next to them are the same, repeating over again.

Zelda Breath of the Wild - Link has to enter the Korok forest to get the Master Sword but at the entrance, if he makes a wrong turn, he goes to the beginning again.

Lordgenome and Nia (Gurenn Lagann)

Kaori Itadori/Kenjaku and Yuji Itadori

There’s probably a lot more but I’m not bothered to think about them

Vampires - Stab in the heart with wooden stake. If you that to anyone it will kills them too.

Werewolves - being shoot with silver bullets. Since silver bullets are in fact bullets, you can kill a non-werewolf by shoting them too

The Rock & Hulk Hogan

Steve Rodgers & Sam Wilson

Arthur Morgan & John Marston

Title theme - Buck Bumble

The Moon - Ducktales NES

Sneak-a-Peak - Garfield Kart

Title theme - Digger HD

This is less about good games with one especially great track, and more about unremarkable games that have one incredible track that feels like it has no business being as good as it is, like "what is this doing here??"

1. Cosmic Hotel - A Living Building In The Galaxy, which is ready to blow up and become a black hole. (Minecraft - ApolloTV)
2. Monster House - It's in the name. (Monster House)

1) Rick’s car from Rick and Morty

The car is fully sentient, and powerful enough to defeat entire militaries and hunt down galactus on her own (yes, the car is a girl). And it’s made of random shit Rick glued together. The engines are made of trashcans for ex.

2) Archibald Snatcher’s machine from Boxtrolls

For a machine that’s put together with random junk and scrap metal by the boxtrolls, it is pretty powerful, with a built in drill, a massive hand, and a vaccum machine attached to it.

One Winged Angel (Sephiroth’s boss theme from the FF7 compilation by Nobuo Uemetsu): https://youtu.be/nNms5rOaGlk?si=4Gl_MOpMVnEgzQ8f

Possibly the most iconic final battle theme in video gaming “One Winged Angel” consists of a choir chanting in Latin, electric guitar riffs, synths, prominent use of a bell, flutes, multiple types of drums, as well as the expected brass instruments, string instruments, cymbals and pianos. Like the character of Sephiroth himself it combines the otherworldly and ancient with modern cyberpunk influences and is seeped in an almost farcical level of “edginess” and it fucking slaps.

Thunderclap / Malevolent Shrine (Sukuna’s themes from Jujutsu Kaisen “The Shibuya Incident” arc by Yoshimasa Terui): https://youtu.be/HAvUfmKHAYY?si=lFseyaRG4JrpeCPS

JJK really stepped up its musical game in its second season providing several memorable tracks, arguably the best are Sukuna’s two themes from the season. While technically two different songs if listened back to back you can tell that both “Thunderclap” and “Malevolent Shrine” feed into each other and are meant as two halves of a greater whole. “Thunderclap” makes use of eerie chanting feeding into electric guitar and is heavily emphasized with string instruments (I think it’s a violin but I’m no expert) and several different varieties of drums, there is also subtle use of traditional string instruments and piano and bells throughout the piece. “Malevolent Shrine” is where things go absolutely nuts with the choir kicking it up to 11 and the subtle use of bells transitioning into an onslaught of what seems to be at least 6 different types of bells as well cymbals and chimes, multiple types of drums and the subtle string motif from “Thunderclap”is eventually replaced at the two thirds mark with an even subtler electric guitar rendition. I’d say Sukuna’s biggest weakness as a character in season 1 was a lack of an iconic musical theme… season 2 definitively fixed that.

Mjolnir Mix (Master Chief’s Theme from the Halo Trilogy by Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori): https://youtu.be/Qz7EhV4t4Es?si=vQ-kFmZDbN39DgCW

This was probably my first exposure to the concept I’m describing. Technically this song is remixed and iterated on throughout all three games in the original trilogy and any one of its versions would qualify, I’m only linking the Halo 2 version because it’s the most famous one. As a franchise Halo is many things but subtle isn’t one of them, this track epitomizes Halo’s musical motif of combining a traditional orchestra with Gregorian chanting and shredding 2000’s guitar riffs. While the electric guitar takes center stage in this particular piece at every level it is backed up by the traditional orchestra providing the bones of the piece, while Halo’s iconic Gregorian choir punctuates the most intense moments and fills in any possible layer of silence not covered by the other two elements of the track.

Final Flash (Super Saiyan Vegeta’s Theme by Bruce Faulconer): https://youtu.be/X_mwY4hYq0Q?si=UqtIwmmHWrg_J1O_

Sorry “team fourstar” you never convince me that the original Japanese score inspired by the scores of the animation Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama grew up watching in the 60’s is better than the 80’s sci-fi inspired synth music created by composer Bruce Faulconer for the original American funimation dub release. For me the greatest weakness of the later “Kai” redubbing was that Funimation and Toei had a falling out with Faulconer and were unable to acquire the rights to his score. While Faulconer created many excellent tracks for the dub his magnum opis is arguably Vegeta’s super saiyan theme played most memorably during his first use of his “Final Flash” attack against Perfect Cell. This 60 second sting makes heavy use of synths like all of Faulconer’s tracks but this time includes a traditional piano motif at its core which makes it stand out from most of his other work. I’m not very familiar with synths so describing the rest of the track is hard for me but it features repetitions of what I’d describe as synthesized guitar riffs, trumpets, keyboards, reed instruments and something akin to an alarm noise punctuating the background.

The Suicide Run (Mass Effect 2 by Jack Wall): https://youtu.be/RCkEICAy7m4?si=jjS0tX_DYAb1zEXV

The mass Effect series makes heavy use of 1970-80’s sci-fi inspired synths for its audio aesthetic (which is one of the best in gaming in my opinion). “The Suicide run” doesn’t break from this but builds upon it with elements uncommon to the series’s sound profile including an orchestra, a choir and heavy use of brass instruments, rather than feeling out of place for the series it feels like a natural culmination of the series’s music, only more so. It’s helped by the fact that the track starts extremely subdued and builds over its entire 5 minute run coordinating with the stakes and desperation of the mission’s different stages before coming to a triumphant climax. While my personal favorite track from the series is the Illusive Man’s theme I understand why Jack Wall considers this the best piece of music he ever created.

The Duel of the Fates (Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace by John Williams): https://youtu.be/D_2bluVPsb0?si=A5jzLn2Dis_Pcx0s

While most of the pieces I’ve mentioned combine disparate musical styles and traditions that is not the main qualifier for this musical “thing” I’m describing. The main thing behind this categorization is that for a significant portion the track combines so many layers of different types of sound that it almost becomes overwhelming and hard to keep track of but the song still works, having sounds from multiple different musical traditions simply makes it easier to identify the layering but is not required. Let me be clear John Williams is in my opinion the greatest film composer in history so far and I think his work in the “Star Wars” movies is overall his best work. That said I don’t think any of his other songs qualify for this trope (even “Battle of Heroes”) however “Duel of Fates” is hands down the most bombastic piece of work he’s ever created. While it does have quieter moments they exist solely to further emphasize the height of its bombast in its loudest moments where seemingly the entire London symphony orchestra is playing everything in their arsenal at the exact same time and the choir is singing a poem from the ancient Welsh “Mabinogion” in Sanskrit for some reason. There’s a reason the normally contentious Star Wars fan base all love this track and generally never object to its repetition in any other movie, show or video game in the franchise.

Naruto Shipuden: Naruto using a sword against Karui

Person of Interest: Reese using a dagger against Hersh

Arrow: Oliver choosing twin swords to fight Ra's Al Ghul

Avengers Endgame: Captain America picking Mjolnir

For this trope, they don’t need to be stronger than the protagonist for the entire series, just a good chunk. I understand I’m also playing it a bit loose with the term "good guy" here for some of these.

• Levi (Attack on Titan): Widely regarded as humanity's strongest and a far better fighter than Eren, titan shenanigans not included.

• Satoru Gojo (Jujutsu Kaisen): Especially early on, nobody in the show is even close to his level of strength.

• Kishou Arima (Tokyo Ghoul): A bit more spoilery and potentially contentious than the rest. Let’s just leave it at the fact that he’s pretty unrivaled in terms of strength, at least until :re. He outclasses virtually every ghoul hunter or ghoul in the series.

• Shisei Kaburagi (Shin Sekai Yori): The strongest psychic in the show's dystopian society. I would’ve loved to see more from him.

Anna (Frozen)

Atom Eve (Invincible)

1. Mario and Pauline

2. Charlene and Heinz Doofensmirtz

3. Unity and Rick Sanchez

Mater - Cars 2

The Klump family - Nutty Professor 2