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star trek - Why does Worf always lose fights and get beaten by most of his opponents?


Worf is billed as a proud warrior from a mighty warrior race who live for combat and fighting. His toughness and fighting skills are constantly referred to with awe and reverence. However, he's constantly bested, beaten and defeated; often quite easily by whoever he engages. Whether it's Jem'Hadar, Guinan, Borg, Lore, some guest alien or even other Klingons, he 'gets handled'.


Outside of Holodeck opponents, he seems to lose almost every confrontation he is in. Though he's always talking about battle and his strengths as a warrior, he gets his butt handed to him whenever he actually fights.







Answer



It's a quick and simple way to show the viewer just how badass this new, unknown alien is.


During The Next Generation, Data and Worf had the most raw strength - Worf due to his Klingon heritage, and Data because he was an android. But Worf was also security personnel, with training to deal with intruders - so if a new unknown alien is able to toss him across the room, what chance did mere humans (or Betazoids, or...) have?


Because of how often it happened to Worf, TVTropes has dubbed this The Worf Effect.



Additional addendum, copied from the above TVTropes page:



On the video commentary for the episode "Errand of Mercy" on the Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1 Blu-Ray, the Worf Effect is very clearly referred to by VFX designer David Rossi. He notes that the production staff consciously used Worf as the "measuring stick" by which the strength and Badass-ery of villains was determined.




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