This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
AdmiralRufus: I think Gar should have it's own separate article. This explanation
sums up perfectly the difference between being gar and badass. All gar characters are badass, but all badass characters aren't gar.
Guessmyname: I think that should sum Badass up about right ("The Rule of Cool personified")
B.D.: I can't believe that this list was written without Ash of Evil Dead/Army of Darkness fame...
Ununnilium: The thing is, "badass" is an actual slang word whose definition doesn't quite fit with the entry here. In use, I've mostly seen it applied to any character who pulls off something impressive in a "macho" way.
Airbud: I look at badassness as a state of being, not necessarily about pulling off stunts. A lot of heroes pull off crazy stunts without being badasses (nice guys like Macgyver and Spider-man). A badass character is one that is so cool that he's fun to watch. For examples of badasses, look to Bruce Campbell's character in Army of Darkness, almost any character Samuel L Jackson plays, and most incarnations of Batman. It's mostly a matter of a hero knowing that he's good at what he does, and taking control of the situation. Asuka lacks the self-confidence necessary to be qualified as a badass.
Ununnilium: True, true. So I don't think it really fits with the almost-sociopathic version talked about in the entry.
Tzintzuntzan: What Airbud said is pretty close to what I had in mind when I wrote the initial entry — Ash and company. They are indeed hyper-competent and hyper-confident, but I think part of what gets fandom to label someone a Badass is that their talent goes to something that's violent and risky. Batman is an amazingly competent and confident detective, but when he takes two obscure clues and solves the entire mystery with them, I've never seen him called a Badass for that. He gets called a Badass because he can grab a criminal and get him to talk by dangling him from a skyscraper. And most of the heroes who get dubbed badasses seem to have that sociopathic streak (Batman included).
As for Asuka, she does have the confidence, and competence, and knack for pulling off the impossible (and borderline sociopathy) in her early episodes. She has it again, briefly, in End of Evangelion.
Ununnilium: I've seen nonviolent badassery. The main part of it isn't violence, but riskiness, competence, and impressiveness. Figuring out a mystery from two obscure clues isn't badass, but, say, if those clues come from something the bad guy said just as he was about to kill him, that'd be badass.
(random passer-by): An entertainingly written take on the concept can be found here, though it is from a page on roleplaying games:
http://www.io.com/~sjohn/action.htm
Ununnilium: Nice. And might I say that this version of the page is closer to what I was trying to talk about here.
Seven Seals: If you want a non-violent badass, you need only turn to Gregory House from House. I mean, he only tortures his patients in about 9 out of 10 episodes. And it's for their own good.
Kilyle: I'm not sure I would count him among the non-violent. And besides his patients, he did punch out Chase (that'd be one of Chase's shining moments, actually, lying there on the floor, blood running from his mouth (or am I making this more Bad Ass than it really was?), and he's calming explaining his side of things so that House can get a clue and save the patient).
Tricky Pacifist: Well, no, House isn't really nonviolent. He's got verbal violence down to an art and a science, and that probably contributes to his Badass status. But for the most part he's badass because of all the incredible stuff he does, and the awesome manner in which he does it.
Here's another example: I'm no fan of The Chronicles of Riddick and the character certainly is violent. Nevertheless, he had one moment which even I would identify as badass: swinging out into killer sunlight with only a sparse dousing of water for protection to rescue the Distressed Damsel. He isn't hurting anybody (except himself) but that moment alone is enough to make him incredibly badass.
Ununnilium: Does Vader really count? He's awesome, yes, but not in a Bad Ass way.
Also, who in Ultraviolet is badass?
Kizor: Darth Vader strangles people with his mind. I'd say he easily makes the grade, despite the Heel–Face Turn / Woobiefication at the end of ROTJ.
Ununnilium: That's a good point.
Also also, I'd say that Mr. Saxon from the new Doctor Who isn't a Bad Ass, but a Magnificent Bastard. It's a different kind of awesome evil.
No Dot: This is one of The Oldest Ones in the Book, ne? I'm surprised it took someone this long to add mythology.
Sebastian Speaking on behalf of the un-hip readers of the Wiki, could someone please explain the odd sentence concerning Ray Winstone. I can take a flying guess and say it has something to do with Sexy Beast, but the readers should not have to take flying guesses.
- We could make this article a lot more concise by changing the video games section to "owing to the wish-fulfilling and generally violent nature of the madium, every videogame character except Mario is a badass."
Kilyle: I might have gone overboard with Gilgamesh Wulfenbach... but in general I think my links are justified. And I don't think I got the best link to showcase his dad, but it does show off his scarring, so that's enough until someone finds a better moment of badassery. (Wait, never mind, I think I fixed that just before I posted it. But people are still welcome to find better pages.)
...And I wish someone would explain to me the distinction between Bad Ass (fun!) and Marty Stu (bad writing!). Unless, of course, I've just hit the nail on the head.
Uknown Troper: You pretty much did. Basically, a badass will a) often break Willing Suspension of Disbelief due to the Rule of Cool, whereas a Marty Stu will likely elicit groans from the audience — unless said marty stu is also The Ace, in which case it swings right back because of Refuge in Audacity. And b) badasses — as well as their Refuge in Audacity counterpart, the Heroic Sociopath — may be flawed characters, often highly so in several places (especially morally), while a Marty Stu will unfailingly be perfect in almost every regard. Put in the confines of a show, the Marty Stu will always win, but you'll root for the badass anyway because he looks so much cooler, even in losing.
That's how I see it, anyhow.
Geese: It's kind of like The Worf Effect. The Big Guy getting beaten up is a cheap, quick-and-dirty way to show the enemy is Serious Business and that the heroes are awesome for finally claiming victory. Actually establishing them as Serious Business is both harder and makes things cooler, and tends to involve mass extinctions.
Likewise, the Marty Stu comes naturally by his "too awesome for words" rep (so it feels cheap and faked), or it's simply designated to him by the author (so it feels like it's insulting your intelligence). The Badass goes out and earns it. Sometimes he earns it real hard. The Badass needs no laurels, no fanfare, no Informed Ability and at times needs no victory, no moral high ground and no superpowers. Indeed, the Marty Stu will reign victorious with no effort thanks to the amazing nature of his awesome power. The Badass will fight, will bleed, will die, might even keep fighting afterward and if he wins, it's because he's earned it. The Badass would scorn victory by authorial fiat, which is the only thing keeping the Marty Stu from being a bloody smear.
Or more concisely, Marty Stu is where the author says, "this guy is cool!" Badass is where the author says, "this guy just ripped another guy's spine out," and the audience says, "cool!" The Marty Stu is Immune to Bullets. The Badass gets shot five times and finishes the fight on sheer willpower and adrenaline.
Or even shorter, "a risk of nothing is no measure of one's character." If there's no challenge, then no, you peabrained author, he is not cool!
Scifantasy: I fixed up the Samson entry, and suddenly I really want to launch Useful Notes On Judaism...
Large Blunt Object: Jesus? Muhammad? Johnny Cash? Just... no. This page is getting even worse than Magnificent Bastard was, and that's just the fucking Real Life section...
(much, much later) Deleted the whole real life section. It was beyond saving.
Uknown Troper: Probably for the best. Real Life tends not to break the Willing Suspension of Disbelief much anyway.
Phartman: It's back, and just as ridiculous as before. You should see the natter floating around Ghandi. Badass? To hell with that: if we'd listened to Ghandi in WWII, European Jews wouldn't exist today.
Anonymous: Spoon from Dog Soldiers didn't quite win the fistfight- he still got torn to shreds by the werewolf he was fighting. I didn't remove the entry, though, because even considering that he lost, that was still really fucking awesome.
Libwolf: Shouldn't Torg from Sluggy Freelance be added? Consider That Which Redeems when he took out a Demon Lord with a tower. Or in the Aylee.org arc when he runs into a gunfight waving a sword? (granted he runs right back out again, grabs a few guns then runs back in) Or the Bug Squisher War - Torg is a badass!
Large Blunt Object: So add him yourself. It's a goddamn Wiki.
Haven: I think that calling Godzilla a Badass is stretching the term a bit. He may, arguably, be Badass, but I don't think he is a Badass. I mean, so he's a big reptile who kills humans? That's like saying a kid who uses his size relative to ants to step on them is badass (and I guess if you want to stretch the analogy, flaming breath :: a magnifying glass). I don't know much about the movies where he takes on other monsters though, about whether or not those establish him as badass, but I'm skeptical.
Spectrum: Godzilla is badass because of his determination and the immense amount of punishment he can take without flinching. (See The Juggernaut.) In real life giant animals have no chance if humans really want to kill them. Godzilla is badass because is able to shrug off things that should kill him, both when fighting humans and other monsters.
Random quote from here: "GAR relates to going gay for the awesome manliness of someone. Therefore by definition I think Kamina is the answer to this question. The girls fawn over him non stop and the guys struggle to hide their feelings the whole series . . . except leeron.". —Document N
DomaDoma: I'll take a stab at pretending that anyone reads the Discussion page for the natter here, on account of the incendiary properties: the fall of Saigon is not badass, it is not a Triumph of the People, and I couldn't care less about the American side per se in this matter because they weren't the innocents being massacred. Over and out.
Tricky Pacifist: Was that in response to my Vietnam entry in the Real Life section and accompanying Howard Zinn, quote? Because I didn't think we were making moral judgments on this page. If we are, then I certainly contest Theodore Roosevelt's right to be on the page either: the man was an unrepentant, war-mongering US imperialist. If we're not making moral judgments, then I think you have to admit that taking on the biggest military superpower the world has ever seen for around two decades and winning is pretty Badass.
Tricky Pacifist: [Some weeks later ...] So, to sum up, I put Vietnam in the "Badass" category—as opposed to, say, Crowning Moment Of Awesome, which I probably wouldn't attempt. Would somebody care to tell me why this is inappropriate? (Or, if the answer is that we're making moral judgments, how that affects whether or not something or someone is Badass and why we're not making those judgments on any other entries?)
X3: I removed:
- How on Earth was Master Chief not included on this list earlier?
From the Video Games section because Master Chief is on that list.
x: There needs to be Badass (in a) Suit. I mean, come on. Plenty of suit-wearers are badass. This is reserved for full-time suit-wearers, though (to prevent oversaturation).
Nohbody: Is it just me, or does this page seem like it's calling out for a media-specific breakdown, like what's done with Crowning Moment Of Awesome?
On the other hand, though, given how long the intro already is thanks to the subtrope listing, that would make things even more stupidly unwieldy.
Do you know what a badass guitar is? Try this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badass
