Very Punchable Man - TV Tropes

"There's the opposite of love at first sight. There are people walking the earth that the moment you meet them, you want to punch them and keep punching them."

• Hi Score Girl: Haruo Yaguchi is a magnet for getting clobbered by the women in his life, not that it slows him down any. Understandibly, his mother would need to hand out corporeal punishment from time to time, and love taps from Akira are the easiest way for her to communicate. But Koharu seems to resort to slapping him rather easily, and even Makoto seems to get the occasional manhandling in with Namie Yaguchi's approval simply because she's an Oono.

  Koharu: His face begs to be smacked, so I obliged.

• Green Lantern: Guy Gardner, especially during the Justice League International era. While Guy was an amazing Lantern and fighter, he had a humongous ego and a very combative personality which rubbed everyone the wrong way. He was literally a Very Punchable Man when Batman decked him when he tried to take over as leader of the League and virtually every Leaguer and Corpsman cheered for Hal Jordan to win when Guy and Hal slugged it out to lay claim to be the Lantern of the Sol System. Nowadays, Guy has mellowed out quite a bit from his early days, but there are still people who'd like to punch him in the face.

• Blue Beetle Rolls Out: Both Dan and the Scarab think that Sentinel has a very 'punchable face'.
• Code Prime: Both Autobots and Decepticons have joked that the only reason Megatron keeps Starscream around is to use him as stress relief, since it's so fun to punch him.
• In the Discworld/The Big Bang Theory crossover The Many Worlds Interpretation, by A.A. Pessimal, the visiting Discworlder, Johanna Smith-Rhodes admits that within five minutes of meeting Sheldon Cooper, she wanted to punch him. She asks Penny if everybody else feels like that, or is it just me? Penny considers this, congratulates Johanna on her self-control, and explains that lots of people don't wait as long as five minutes, sweetie, what took you so long?
• In Hero Chat, Adrien's father regularly gets comments regarding the punchability of his face, due to his frequently suspect actions and hyper-controlling attitude.
• Ignited Spark: Discussed by Hawks when Oboro mentions that Aizawa will likely punch Leader in the face when he finds his friend is not dead.
• The Mountain and the Wolf: Wulfrik's entire schtick is to be a walking, talking magnet for beatdowns (via Fisticuff-Provoking Comment, unknowingly pushing a Trauma Button and thus being More Insultingthan Intended, or generally being an Insufferable Imbecile crassly ignorant of the most basic facts about Westeros history), even when he doesn't seem to be willingly trying to start a fight. However, being a Blood Knight even bigger than Gregor Clegane (whom he fought and killed in public), most people manage to hold back. Even among (nominal) allies he still provokes this reaction, though his ignorance is visibly unfeigned: continuously referring to Jon Snow and Ramsay Bolton (formerly Snow) as being related (bastards share a regional surname, but he thinks Same Surname Means Related), asking Daenerys why she doesn't feed her dragons humans, referring to Grey Worm's sexual prowess (who he doesn't know is a eunuch), complaining about the Bodyguard Betrayal inflicted on the Mad King to the bodyguard who betrayed him (for a good cause), etc.
• Persona: One Last Promise: Kazuhiko states at one point that a lot of people consider him to have a very punchable face.
• Pokémon Reset Bloodlines: At one point, Drake (inwardly) refers to Herbert as a "punchable kid".
• When Reason Fails: When Izuku meets Monoma, the latter grates on the former's nerves and Izuku finds Monoma very punchable. His sister Aiko would, post-Time Skip, comment that Izuku uses the word monoma as a verb meaning punchable.

• NIMONA: Nimona, looking at a picture of Thoddeus Sureblade on Ballister's wall, calls him "extremely punchable". Ballister, despite being upset at Nimona at the time, can't help but agree.

• Central Intelligence: Steve is Calvin's highly perverted co-worker, who makes everyone uncomfortable with his raunchiness. So it's always satisfying when Pamela tasers him every time he hits on her.
• Kingsman: The Secret Service: The Lower-Class Lout, gang-leading, Domestic Abuser Dean evokes a strong, violent reaction in the otherwise restrained and reasonable Eggsy. Following a single conversation at the beginning of the film, Eggsy complains about wanting to "bash his fucking face in", and seems to only be held back by the threat of Dean's gang. He gets over this fear later when he storms off to confront him directly after finding his mother with a black eye, and is livid when Harry forces the car he's in to drive away before said fight can start. He finally gets to take him down in The Stinger, and seems particularly excited when his chance presents itself.
• The Mummy (1999): Implied. When Jonathan and Evelyn first meet Rick in prison, he swiftly punches the former in the face after recognising him as the man who swiped a MacGuffin from him. After the siblings recruit Rick to guide them to the lost city of Hamunaptra, he apologizes to Jonathan, who brushes it off, saying that it "happens all the time". Adding to this characterization is the fact Evelyn is completely unfazed by a stranger sucker punching her brother in the face and simply steps over Jonathan's prone body to ask Rick more questions.
• Ong-Bak: Big Bear is unnecessarily violent towards anyone he pleases, particularly offensive towards women, and seems to like bad-mouthing Thai people. While all of the villains in the film are jerkasses, Big Bear, by backhanding a Thai waitress, is the first to get Ting to finally put aside his Buddhist/pacifist ways and get kicking.
• Vincent Must Die ("Vincent doit mourir"), directed by Stéphan Castang, depicts its titular protagonist Vincent being repeatedly assaulted in the workplace, in the street, and everywhere else.

• Anansi Boys: Every time he talks with Grahame Coats, Fat Charlie has to constantly talk himself down by reminding himself that, strictly speaking, he would go to jail if he punched his employer.
• Beyond the Boundary: Yayoi's demeanor tends to annoy people so much that they want to kick her. In fact, in Episode 12, her own son slugged her a couple of times (albeit played for laughs). Later on, Sakura kicked her across the room when she reached her limit, and Ninomiya would have done the same if Sakura hadn't done so. Lastly, when Yayoi began to beat around the bush when questioned about her knowledge of Beyond the Boundary, Izumi stabbed her in the chest.
• Book of Proverbs: Discussed in chapter 18, verse 6, making this trope Older Than Feudalism: "The lips of fools bring them strife, and their mouths invite a beating."
• The Dark Profit Saga: When talking about Heraldin:

  "...a bard who keeps talkin’ like he wants a punch in the face. No offense.”
  “None taken,” said Heraldin. “You’d be surprised how often I hear that.”

• Harry Potter: Played with. She may not be human, but the students of Hogwarts collectively despise Mrs Norris, the bad-tempered caretaker Filch's cat. She seems to share a psychic link with Filch, and if Mrs Norris sees students breaking rules, it seems she can summon Filch. It is the dearest ambition of many students to give Mrs Norris a good kick.
• Oathbringer: Dalinar mentally describes Amaram (a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing nobleman who turns out to be self-aggrandizing, hypocritical, and aligned with Odium to boot) as "the man he most wanted to punch in all Roshar."
• Colin Jost named his own memoir A Very Punchable Face, self-deprecatingly riffing on his public perception (wealthy, smarmy, blandly good-looking). The back cover has a quote from Larry David claiming he always wanted to punch Colin in the face.

• Black Mirror: In "White Bear", Victoria is repeatedly assaulted by everyone she meets since waking up. In the end, it is revealed that Victoria was the girlfriend and accomplice of a Child Killer, recording him burning the victim Jemima to death, and that she has been locked up in the White Bear theme park in order to allow the public to assault her.
• Blue Bloods: In the Season 7 episode "The One that Got Away", this applies to Hassan Nejari, a smug Moroccan diplomat who uses his immunity to escape punishment for Domestic Abuse and displays no remorse whatsoever about it. Danny says in the interrogation room that he'd like to beat the crap out of him, Baez also tells him that he's a piece of crap, and he's eventually shot dead by his own wife after their son is taken into foster care due to his abuse.
• Cobra Kai: Dealing with her landlord Rodney's attempted Sexual Extortion for two minutes was enough to get Tory on the edge of violating her parole. Later, he is terrified by (and very nearly loses a finger to) Kreese.
• Doctor Who: In "Thin Ice", Lord Sutcliffe gets his face clobbered by the Doctor, no less, within less than a minute of his introduction. That definitely qualifies. (He very clearly deserved it for being egregiously racist to Bill, but even many outright monsters haven’t warranted a fist.)
• The Good Place: Exploited in the form of Brent. As part of an experiment to see if someone can become a better person in the afterlife, one of the subjects chosen was Brent: a spoiled upper-middle class white guy who had everything handed to him but still thinks he's being oppressed who's just casually misogynistic and racist to be irritating to those around him but not quite enough to get called out. It gets so bad that eventually, Nice Guy and professor of moral ethics Actual Pacifist Chidi punches him in the face for making a sexist remark to Chidi's girlfriend.
• The Kids in the Hall: Recurring character Mr. Tisane is considered this by his wife Francesca Fiore. She blames it on pheromones. Even the divorce court judge hits him on the head with his gavel.
• Leverage: In "The Corkscrew Job", Parker notes of The Dragon for the week, a heavy by the name of Leonard, "He has a very punchable face."

  Eliot: I was noticing that, myself.

• MacGyver (2016): In "Awl", Mac and Jack are sent to bring in Ralph, a fund manager who handles finances for a terrorist group. Jack immediately deems Ralph to have "punch face," a face you just want to punch, an ambition Jack expresses throughout the episode. In the end, after Ralph's assets are frozen, Jack offers him money to punch him (unsuccessfully).
• M*A*S*H: Frank Burns is the least-liked member of the 4077th M*A*S*H unit and Sitcom Arch-Nemesis to main character Hawkeye Pierce, who physically threatens him at times. When one episode has Hawkeye make good on his threat and punch Frank in the face, the rest of the camp cheers for Hawkeye despite him being placed under house arrest.
• An episode of The Pretender has Jarod assume the identity of a private detective who's gone missing. Whenever Jarod introduces himself as the detective, the person he's introducing himself to punches him.
• The Slap Maxwell Story: Applied to the eponymous character, an obnoxious sportswriter who would be slapped at the climax of every episode's opening.
• Stargate-verse:
  • Stargate SG-1: "48 Hours": Jack O'Neill is in an Enemy Mine with Smug Snake ex-villain Harry Maybourne, who used him to escape from prison and (so Jack wrongly believes) shot him In the Back in his last appearance. While they're working together to rescue Teal'c, Maybourne smugly asks if Jack still wants to turn him in. Jack replies, "Actually, that overwhelming desire to shoot you has come back."
  • Stargate Atlantis: "Hide and Seek": In the process of testing a personal shield device which renders him impervious to physical harm, Dr McKay invites Grodin to hit him. Grodin doesn't even hesitate to punch McKay in the face as hard as he possibly can. This is likely because Rodney McKay is mostly known for being an insufferable know-it-all who is only tolerated because he is a genius problem solver, but very few people actually like him.

• In "Accident on 3rd Street", Al Stewart describes the man responsible for a deadly car accident as such:

  Reminded me of one of those Vikings with the long-handled swords

  The kind of guy even Joan Baez would not feel non-violent towards

• In Celtic Mythology, Conan "The Bald" Mac Morna is the resident Jerkass and Gadfly among Fionn Mac Cumhaill's warriors known as The Fianna. He often picks fights with and insults the other members, and is a Miles Gloriosus to the tenth degree. This results in Conan being The Friend Nobody Likes and the other Fianna expressing a desire to beat him up, threatening to beat him up, then actually beating him up, often in that order.

• David Otunga has found that being John Laurinaitis' essential number two and messenger tends to have his drawbacks. That is, Otunga often ends up being an outlet for other superstars' frustration.
• As the cruiserweight-size minions of heel champion Jinder Mahal, Samir and Sunil Singh predictably spend a lot of time getting the crap beaten out of them by Jinder's babyface adversaries. Downplayed, however, in that their distractions were almost always enough for Jinder to make a comeback and win.

• Ars Magica: The Gift automatically causes others to regard mages (or those with the Magical Air Flaw) the same way they'd regard a person reputed for a lifetime of dishonesty and unreliability, with privilege obtained in the most illegitimate manner they can imagine. This jealousy and mistrust make the mage a VPM in their eyes. The Blatant Gift Flaw magnifies this effect into thinking the mage is an actively dangerous person and can lead to being physically attacked. The ways around this include being unnoticed (doesn't work for the Blatant Gift), being a Nice Guy every time they see you over the course of several encounters so they recognize their gut reaction is inappropriate and unwarranted and fight it down (lie down and be an Extreme Doormat, Blatant Gifters), being born with the Gentle Gift (incompatible with Blatant Gift), or the other person being protected by the Parma Magica. Since this includes other mages, the invention of the Parma Magica is what finally allowed mages to actually start and maintain a society among themselves.

• Genshin Impact:
  • Qiqi refers to Hu Tao as someone with a "very punchable face" ad verbum due to her prankster and cheeky behavior, to say nothing of how she tried to bury her in the past.
  • Given with how insufferable Edwin Eastinghouse is, how he lords his intellect to others, and will very much degrade anyone who isn't as smart as he is, he is basically begging to be socked in the face (with Chaussivert's lackey, Lemarcq, being barely able to restrain himself from punching the guy for his attitude).
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II: Succeeding in a Speech check to get away with punching a guard will result in Henry claiming that he mistook the guard for Kunesh.
• Slay the Spire: One of the events you can encounter in any Act is a special shop with a very obnoxious shopkeeper, whom your character instantly desires to punch in the face. Giving in to said urge is not recommended, since it deals some Scratch Damage to you for no benefit and the shop provides useful services.
• Spyro the Dragon: Moneybags is a greedy Con Artist hated both in and out of universe for his tendency to squeeze Spyro for his gems, and he ends up on the receiving end of a great deal of physical abuse as a result. This is particularly pronounced in Spyro: Year of the Dragon, which includes him pissing off the normally placid Sgt. Byrd. and an opportunity for the player to beat him up and reclaim every last gem he snatched from you.

• Being a ΔΙΚ: Tybalt is among the most hateable characters in the game, with a massive sense of entitlement towards Jill, contempt towards the MC for being poor, casual homophobia, flaunting of his wealth, and his insistence that he is self-made despite his only achievement being his adoption by wealthy parents. Notably, while escaping from the Preps' party in Episode 5, he accosts and slaps the MC, and a DIK MC can punch him in the face: notably, if you do so, the scene slows down to enhance the moment of impact, and it is the only scene in the first two seasons to come with its own replay button.

• The Stories of Sodor: "Protestors":
  • Or very wheeshable man. Wendell tells Joey that, after learning about the blackmail, it took all his will power not wheesh (loudly blast his whistle) at Norman.
  • William says that he wheeshed at some of the protesters when they tried to dump pig's blood on him.
• If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device: In episode 29, Rogal Dorn sees a "multi-limbed wretch that I wish to punch" while watching events in Commorragh with the Emperor. The Emperor identifies said character as the Master Haemonculus Urien Rakarth, "a contender for worst living creature ever conceived."

  Rogal: I am vexed the Khan has not had him crushed to pulp.
  Emperor: That is the standard first impression.

• Harry Greene in Heartstopper is a homophobic bully who demeans protagonist Charlie both to his face and behind his back to the strips other protagonist Nick Nelson, Charlie's - at the time still in the closet - boyfriend. Nick finally snaps and punches Harry after he calls Charlie both a homophobic slur and pathetic. Both Charlie and Nick's friends who are on the same rugby team as Nick and Harry agree that Harry had deserved to get punched, and the friends apologise for not sticking up for Charlie earlier and agree to no longer associate with Harry.

• SCP Foundation: Played for Horror regarding SCP-053. It looks and behaves like a completely ordinary three-year-old girl, but any other human who comes into contact with it will be completely overcome with an Unstoppable Rage and viciously murder anybody in the vicinity before trying to kill the girl, dropping dead on the spot before they can reach her. The effect seems to somewhat operate in reverse, too, given that the infamous SCP-682 allows her to treat it like a pet.

• Vinesauce Tomodachi Life: Broccoli's "incredibly punchable face". Vinny brings it up almost every time he appears.

• Bob's Burgers: Played with: Louise has a crush on Boo Boo, the youngest member of boy band Boyz 4 Now, and it manifests as an incredible desire to slap him in the face.
• Coconut Fred's Fruit Salad Island: The title character annoys the other characters on his island so much that the result is a downplayed variant where some of them want to avoid him, ESPECIALLY those like Mr. Greenrind.
• Gravity Falls:
  • "Li'l" Gideon Gleeful, despite only being 10 years old, is The Napoleon and the main antagonist of Season 1. While most of Gravity Falls loves him, the protagonists in the Mystery Shack all despise him for one reason or another. In "The Deep End", Stan tries to use the sunlight reflected off his watch to "burn the child", while in "Weirdmageddon Part 1" Wendy threatened and then succeeds to "wear your butt on my foot like a rhinestone slipper!" He's somewhat reformed after a Heel Realization in "Weirdmageddon Part 1", downplaying the trope.
  • Downplayed with Pacifica Northwest. In "The Golf War", after Pacifica shows up at the mini golf course and starts mocking Mabel and the Pines family, Stan mutters to Soos, "would it be wrong to punch a child?" In "Northwest Mansion Mystery", Dipper tells Mabel he would tell Pacifica she is the worst to her face... and then actually does so when she shows up at the door a moment later. She's reformed after this episode and given a Freudian Excuse, so it's eventually subverted.
• King of the Hill: Kahn Souphanousinphone is a short-tempered narcissist who's disparaging towards both his "dumb redneck" neighbours and his own Laotian cultural heritage. Funnily enough, he's not all that popular because of this, and is implied to be on the receiving end of this trope fairly often.

  Khan: "You know, a lot of people say they're gonna hit you, but not that many actually do."

• The Looney Tunes Show: "Bugs and Daffy Get a Job": Daffy slaps a doctor for no reason, simply saying that he has "a very slappable face."
• Miraculous Ladybug: Producer Bob Roth is a massive asshole who not only expects Ladybug and Cat Noir to protect him from the consequences of his own greed and selfishness but even has the gall to gloat about the fact that they have to protect him because his enemies are usually Akumas. Unsurprisingly, the heroes have threatened to leave him to his fate on several occasions, and Cat Noir once threw him into a dumpster.
• The Simpsons: "Mr. Plow": Homer visits an ad executive for help reviving his flagging Mr. Plow business. The ad rep gives his credentials: "You know those radio ads where two annoying people with annoying voices yammer back and forth? I invented those!" Homer immediately slugs him. The ad man shrugs it off: "Happens all the time."
• Strawberry Shortcake: Berry in the Big City: In "Strawberry Shortcake's Summer Vacation", the main villain of the special, Boysenberry Mousse, is so smug and mean to the Berry Besties that Apple Dumpling admits she wants to beat him up. Later in the special, when Boysenberry is left dangling from a cliff over a bottomless chasm, Apple is tempted to leave him and has to be convinced by Strawberry Shortcake to save his life.
• What If…? (2021): In "What If... Captain Carter Fought the Hydra Stomper?", Nat and Peggy both declare their reality's version of Loki an extremely punchable person. Then they proceed to do just that.
• Xavier: Renegade Angel: Xavier is often punched by other people. Most of the time, the person beating him uses the same voice effect saying "Take that!" "Taste the pain!".