Uh... oops?
Thorgeir Skorargeir rushed at Thorkel Sigfusson. Another man came at Thorgeir from behind, but before he could get in a blow Thorgeir swung Battle-hag with both hands so fast and hard that on his back-swing the hammer of the axe hit the head of the man behind him and smashed his skull into small pieces.
A combat move in which a heroic melee fighter, taking aim at an opponent in front of him, swings a large melee weapon over his head and—accidentally or maybe intentionally—hits an enemy standing behind him, taking him out. Usually this is followed by landing a hit on the enemy in front immediately afterwards (what the fighter wanted to do in the first place).
This comes in handy when the hero is outnumbered in a fight and the adversaries do not practice Mook Chivalry, or when a sneaky attacker is about to stab the hero In the Back while he is distracted by the enemy in front of him.
The Dangerous Backswing is not always lethal. Especially there is the comedy variant in which an overzealous fighter does not realize that his mighty swings pose a threat to his own allies standing behind him, and the very companions he means to protect only narrowly dodge possibly lethal hits or else collect some bumps to the head.
Overlaps with Badass Back. Compare Spin Attack, an alternative way to deal with such a situation. If the backswing hits an ally, it's a case of Friendly Fire. Collateral Damage is basically the missile weapon equivalent. Compare and contrast Offhand Backhand, where the character is perfectly aware of the person behind them and clobbers them without looking regardless of whether they are currently facing a threat frontal. Compare Plank Gag, Rod-and-Reel Repurposed and Deadly Dodging.
Examples:
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Films — Animation
- In 101 Dalmatians, Horace accidentally bonks Jasper in the head with a club.
- The Axe
, a short film by Armenfilm, features a village where people don't know of axes and break their firewood off using their hands and teeth. A passing woodcutter takes pity on them and gives them his axe, but they have zero idea of how to work with it safely and end up killing and maiming each other, starting with the first wannabe lumberjack fatally bonking his buddy on the head when winding up for his first swing.
- A variant happens in The Prince and the Pauper. Goofy, disguised as the executioner to save the Prince and Donald from the castle dungeons, slipped on a water bucket and accidentally threw his axe at the weasel guard. When Goofy pulls the axe off the wall, the bladed end breaks off and clangs the weasel behind him on the head.
- The Sword in the Stone: As Sir Ector raises his sword over his head to attack the enchanted dishes animated by Merlin's magic, he strikes his son Kay in the head with the backswing. Fortunately for Kay, the blade simply bonks him instead of cutting him. (This scene is Recycled Animation from the scene in One Hundred and One Dalmatians in which Horace bonks Jasper in the head with a club.)
Films — Live-Action
- In Condorman, our erstwhile hero, when confronted by a bunch of thugs, grabs his briefcase and swings it back so he can launch it forward at the thug in front in him, only to clobber a thug sneaking up behind him in the face.
- Indiana Jones:
- Raiders of the Lost Ark: During the street fight in Cairo, one of the Mooks accidentally hits his comrade when he winds up to hit Indy with a piece of wood.
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: While Indy tussles with Vogel atop a moving tank, Marcus Brody, standing behind him, wonders aloud how to get off the tank. Marcus is immediately answered when Indy draws back his fist to punch Vogel, inadvertently catching Marcus in the face with his elbow and knocking him off the tank.
- In Kung Fu Hustle, Sing and Bone try to throw knives at the landlady, but keep hurting Sing by accident. Bone tries to throw by swinging his arm back and hurling, but stabs Sing instead. Then when they're noticed, Bone lifts a box to throw, not realizing that it's full of snakes and he just dropped a bunch of angry snakes all over Sing.
- In Unidentified Flying Oddball, as Sir Gawain turns to open a door he gets pinned to it with a hurled spear. King Arthur goes to remove the spear while lecturing him on never turning your back on the enemy, not noticing the enemy knight sneaking up behind him until he yanks it out, knocking down the knight with the butt of the shaft. Then Merlin tries to sneak up and hit the off switch on the neck of the android Hermes; our hero sees what he's doing and sings the US national anthem, causing the android to salute and knock Merlin aside.
Literature
- The Dana Girls book "The Mystery of the Locked Room" starts with one of the girls accidentally hitting a man on the head with a tennis racket, as she was about to demonstrate a strike to her sister.
- Referenced in Going Postal (Discworld) when the protagonist visits the Mended Drum, which sees a Bar Brawl happen so often it's become a professional sport. One team is overheard discussing strategy, and the leader mentions a move where a fighter steps in between two opponents while wielding a chair and disposes of the one behind with the backswing before bringing the chair down over the head of the opponent in front. It's worth six points.
- Heimskringla: When, in the reign of Harald Gilli, a Wendish raiding army sacks Konungahella, a local farmer called Ölvir Big Mouth rushes bravely but inconsiderately at the invaders and finds himself surrounded by eight Wendish raiders. Ölvir swings his battle-axe over his head so that "the foremost point of the axe-blade struck the one that was behind him under the throat so that it cut his jaw and windpipe in two, and he fell over backwards". Then [Ölvir] swings the axe forwards at the man standing in front of him and "strikes [him] on the head and split him down to the shoulders." Ultimately Ölvir is severely wounded but kills six of the attackers, with two running away.
- The Icelandic Sagas: In The Saga of Hrómund Gripsson, Hrómund's enemy Helgi wins all battles because of his mistress Lara, a shape-changing witch who assists her lover in battle casting spells while flying over the battlefield in the shape of a swan. In Hrómund's and Helgi's last confrontation, Helgi swings his sword at Hrómund while Lara soars overhead and accidentally cuts off Lara's leg, which kills her. Without her magic to protect Helgi, Hrómund can finally kill him. A rare example of the "friendly fire" version Played for Drama.
- Njal's Saga: When Kári and Thorgeir Skorargeir attack the sons of Sigfús, Thorgeir rushes at Thorkel Sigfússon just as one of Thorkel's companions runs up at Thorgeir from behind. Before the man can strike at Thorgeir, Thorgeir swings his battle-axe with both hands and "drove the axe-hammer into the head of this man who stood behind him, so that his skull was shattered to bits." Then Thorgeir lets the axe come down forward on Thorkel and cuts off Thorkel's arm.
- The Saga of the People of Vatnsdal: Ingolf Thorsteinsson, who carries the sword Aettartangi, with one supporter picks a fight with a gang of eighteen outlaws. The outlaws attack from all sides, but Ingolf swings Aettartangi so that "the sword fell on the head of the man standing behind him so that he met his death, and it delivered a death blow to the man standing in front and thus Ingolf killed them both with a single blow."
Live-Action TV
- Often in El Chapulín Colorado, the titular hero pulls back his Chipote Chillón to hit a villain, then accidentally hits somebody behind too (either a villain trying to sneak up on him, or a good guy trying to get up or just happening to be there at the wrong time).
Music
- In the song "Never Split the Party" by Emerald Rose (a satirical recounting of a Dungeons & Dragons dungeon crawl), the player characters have to dodge the cleric's backswing, implying that they're trying to avoid damage from Friendly Fire.
The cleric swung his holy club, some orcish skulls to break
We tried to dodge his backswing as we pondered our mistake
Podcasts
- Friends at the Table: In a shocking moment in episode 17 of Palisade, Cori finishes off an enemy with a swing of her hammer, only to discover that as she drew it back she had fatally impaled her own father, who was positioned behind her, with the spike on the reverse end. Out of character, Cori's player had rolled a mixed success on her Strike Decisively roll, and chose to "strike carelessly, causing collateral damage beyond your expectations" as the penalty. As the GM pointed out, accidentally murdering her own father is certainly beyond expectations.
Sports
Tabletop Games
- Used in the RPG Elfs as an example of the Dumb Luck mechanic, with an elf fighting two monsters accidentally decapitating the one behind him while trying to swing at the one in front.
Video Games
- Exploitable in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow with the Red Minotaur soul. This soul swings a giant blade back before swinging it forwards in a full 360-degree arc, so it's possible to hit an enemy twice by facing away from them and then swinging.
- Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, MORDHAU and other such games that put an emphasis on accurate melee weapon combat have a slightly different version of this as a feature; the backswing of the weapon might not touch you, but the actual swing will begin there and hurt like hell, giving you only a half-second more to react than usual. Exploiting this usually becomes fundamental in the metagame.
- A lot of bosses in Dark Souls I swing their (giant) weapons in very wide arcs, so it is quite possible to get killed by them even when approaching them from behind while they attack someone (e.g. a summoned ally) in front of them, simply because the strike either starts or ends well behind their back.
- The pickaxe in Deep Rock Galactic can hit enemies directly above or behind the dwarf swinging it, most often happening when a glyphid sneaks up behind a mining dwarf only to receive an Offhand Backhand.
- Get Amped: The Skull Bardiche accessory takes the form of a large axe. It is so heavy that, when you do an upward swing move with it, the axe smashes down to the user's back, hitting the enemies on the user's back as well.
- A variant in Pirate101. Whenever an ettin enemy performs a standard melee attack, the head controlling the club-wielding arm will sling the club back over their shoulder afterwards, only to accidentally bonk the back of the other head. The other head responds by punching the first. Unfortunately, this is purely cosmetic and doesn't actually hurt the monster.
Web Animation
- Happy Tree Friends: In "Snow Place to Go", Russell casts out his fishing rod, and the hook gets caught in Toothy's wrist. When Russell pulls back, the hook pulls out Toothy's entire nervous system.
Western Animation
- Disenchantment: In "Faster, Princess! Kill! Kill!", Bean is in the dark cellar of Hansel's and Gretel's gingerbread house of horrors, facing Hansel, who advances on her with a pitchfork, while Gretel is creeping up behind her back unseen. As Bean swings a double-bladed axe over her head, intending to strike at Hansel, she accidentally kills Gretel by hitting her in the head, then strikes at Hansel, killing him too.
- In the Looney Tunes Cartoons short "Funeral For a Fudd", Elmer pretends to be dying while using an unconvincing dummy of himself to lure Bugs out of his rabbit hole; Bugs pretends to fall for it and while using a defibrillator on the dummy, Elmer gets shocked repeatedly while Bugs backswings the paddles (obviously not an accident).
- Megas XLR: While the team is fighting off the latest alien threat, Jamie prepares to attack with a baseball bat but bonks Kiva unconscious on the backswing. When she comes to, he claims that the enemy knocked her out and that he defended her... but then a recording of what actually happened gets played on loop, angering Kiva.
- The Simpsons: In the "Treehouse of Horror IX" short "The Terror of Tiny Toon", Bart and Lisa are sucked into an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon where the two titular characters are trying to kill them. While Itchy is trying to attack Bart and Lisa with a chainsaw, his backswing ends up accidentally chopping off Scratchy's arms while he's driving a police car.
Itchy: Sorry.
Scratchy: It happens. [grabs the steering wheel with his mouth] - In the Tom and Jerry short "The Truce Hurts", Tom, Jerry and Butch the bulldog are having a three-way battle, in the course of which Tom repeatedly whacks Jerry with a frying pan; Butch, who is standing behind Tom vainly trying to hit him with a baseball bat, gets hit on the head by Tom's frying pan with every of Tom's swings, without Tom even noticing. This repeats no less than seven times in a row.
Real Life
- The Iberian Montante was a large two-handed Great sword used on the Iberian Peninsula in the 16./17. century and was often used as a bodyguard's weapon. By making a constant but varied sweeping motion the user could threaten multiple opponents around them with a combination of this trope and a Spin Attack, denying them the space and, if used by a bodyguard, preventing the attackers from reaching their principal. It's notable as one of very few times turning your back on an opponent in a sword fight is practical and one of the few ways a single melee combatant could realistically hold off multiple opponents, though it worked by using intimidation rather than actually credibly being able to cut them all down in a single stroke: The Montante was large and heavy enough to be difficult to block and quick and long enough to be difficult to evade, but the first opponent hit would probably disrupt or halt its movement enough to let the others close in and subdue the sword-wielder. But few people wanted to be that first person hit, letting the wielder win time and giving them chances to attack their opponents one by one.
