History BadassAdorable / Literature

* ''Literature/{{Temeraire}}'', although unusually for the trope, the badass is the most immediately obvious (he is a ''dragon'', after all), and the adorable comes out in his interactions with the other characters, particularly with Laurence.

* ''Literature/Goosebumps'': Most of the protagonists are [[Moe surprisingly really adorable for their age]] but after they learn to fight back, they fit this trope to some degree. Special mentions go out to [[ShrinkingViolet Carly Beth Caldwell]] from ''Literature/TheHauntedMask'', [[NiceGuy Billy Harlan]] from ''Literature/WelcomeToCampNightmare'' and (to a lesser extent) [[OnlySaneMan Greg Banks]] from the ''Literature/SayCheeseAndDie'' series.

* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': Hobbits. For creatures the size of human children, they prove to be surprisingly adept at arse-kicking.

* Gazzy and Angel from ''Literature/{{Maximum Ride}}''.Sure, they're cute and all, being the youngest members of the group, but [[{{Gasshole}} Gazzy]] can blow you up with the MANY explosives he keeps somewhere in his clothes while [[CreepyChild Angel]] can effectively [[MindManipulation control your mind]]

* Lucy and Alexa from ''[[Literature/{{Dragons}} The Last Dragon Chronicles]]''. Bonus points for Lucy's LittleMissBadass and LittleMissSnarker and to Alexa's [[spoiler:GooGooGodlike]] tendencies.

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* Lucy and Alexa from ''[[Literature/{{Dragons}} The Last Dragon Chronicles]]''. Bonus points for Lucy's LittleMissBadass and LittleMissSnarker and to Alexa's [[spoiler:GooGooGodlike]] tendencies.
* Eros's war half of Literature/CupidAble.
%% * Huang Rong, from ''Literature/TheLegendOfTheCondorHeroes''.
* ''Literature/HarryPotter'':
** Dobby. He's saved [[TheHero Harry]]'s sorry ass quite a few times, disarmed/attacked several wizards, and says the most awesome line an elf could ever say: "Dobby has no master!!!" [[spoiler:He even died like a badass! Hit by a knife thrown by a crazy chick you just dropped a Chandelier on while apparating three other people out of the domain of Voldemort.]] Though to some, he's not EXACTLY adorable.
** When Harry himself isn't being a badass, he can be pretty damn precious; notable moments include blushing and slopping his drink down himself when a girl he's crushing on smiles at him, or being remarkably quiet and down to earth for someone so famous. [[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZOrjq6WRd0g/TszFB7y7MlI/AAAAAAAAAK8/zibjkRZ0Wlk/s1600/Philosophers+Stone.gif And that's without mentioning how insanely cute Daniel Radcliffe is during the early films]].
** CloudCuckooLander Luna Lovegood.
** [[CuteWitch Ginny]] and [[MamaBear Mrs. Weasley,]] too.
** [[ShrinkingViolet Neville Longbottom]] is THE badass Adorkable.
* ''Literature/YoungWizards'': Praise be to Ponch, the [[spoiler:Dog Who Is God! The Wolf of Darkness clashed with the Hound of Starlight, and the Hound threw his old Enemy to the floor of Heaven.]]
** Tualha, a black kitten who lives in Ireland. She ultimately [[spoiler: gives The Lone Power (read Satan) a [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech Reason You Suck]] speech in order to get it mad.]]
* In the Literature/{{Reboot Book Series}}, Wren 178 counts as this. She's tiny, blond, and able to beat up five guys holding guns with only her fists.

* ''Literature/{{Temeraire}}'', although unusually for the trope, the badass is the most immediately obvious (he is a ''dragon'', after all), and the adorable comes out in his interactions with the other characters, particularly with Laurence.
** Lily is also a good example. While she is a twenty-ton acid-spitter, she is also such a complete creampuff you want to snuggle up beside her.
** There is also a minor horde of {{Plucky Middie}}s, all of whom have earned their badass stripes, and all of whom are just as endearingly awkward as you expect twelve-year-olds in uniform to be.
* ''Literature/{{Redwall}}'''s cute fluffy animal KidHero characters. D'awww, fwuffy ickle mousey. Who just happens to be wielding a BFS. Big for a mousey, anyway. From the average human perspective, it'd be about the size of a kitchen knife at best.
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
** ''Literature/UnseenAcademicals'': Mr. Nutt. TheWoobie, UglyCute, NoSocialSkills, uses hilarious SesquipedalianLoquaciousness ("We must be bursting with machismo!"), starts out as an ExtremeDoormat, and could snap a person's neck with his bare hands. He never actually does anything of the sort, and one gets the impression he probably never would, but just threatening it is enough.
** Tiffany Aching, aged 9, invaded the kingdom of the [[FairFolk Elf Queen]] armed only with a [[FryingPanOfDoom frying pan]] and a gang of ViolentGlaswegian Smurfs in ''Literature/TheWeeFreeMen''.
** Otto von Chriek from ''Literature/TheTruth'' is this crossed with TheWoobie -- he's a reformed vampire who prances around in his neat suit and his thick Uberwäld accent, taking photographs and accidentally turning himself into dust every five minutes. But when his friend William gets in trouble, Otto casually beats up a team of muscled goons and scares the living bejeebers out of their boss, all while sporting a longsword in his chest and ''still'' maintaining his adorable FunnyForeigner front.

* The three Baudelaire siblings from ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' but especially Sunny, who's a baby.
* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': Hobbits. For creatures the size of human children, they prove to be surprisingly adept at arse-kicking.
%% * Madeline of ''Literature/{{Madeline}}''.
%% * ''Literature/{{Coraline}}'': Coraline.
* ''Literature/PippiLongstocking'' is a cute, quirky eleven-year-old... with incredible super-strength. Given that she lives in an otherwise mostly mundane world, we never really get to see just where the limits to her strength is, but she is perfectly capable of overpowering stampeding bulls, angry tigers and fierce sharks without the slightest difficulty. As in lifting the shark in the air while she's swimming, without difficulty. And she scolds it.
* Alice in the ''Literature/AliceGirlFromTheFuture'' series. A cheerful, easy-going, FriendToAllLivingThings schoolgirl – who has, across space and time, defeated pirates, mafia clans, would-be world conquerors and, at one point, a deadly disease.

* In ''Literature/ThePaleKing'', Leonard Stecyk is an [[CheerfulChild excruciatingly upbeat]], kind, and [[ChildProdigy hard-working]] bully magnet. He's also the only one who [[spoiler: rushes in to save his wood shop teacher from dying of shock and blood loss after an accident with a machine. His little apron keeps his clothes from getting drenched in blood, and he makes a perfectly-tied tourniquet on the fly.]]
* ''Literature/TheMysteriousBenedictSociety'':
** Twelve-year-old, pony-tailed Kate Wetherall carries around a bright red bucket full of weapons, crawls through air vents, and can kick a Ten Man's ass any day of the week.
** To some extent, Constance Contraire also fits this trope. Yes, she's not quite adorable, and certainly doesn't have the cheeriest disposition, but she can kick some serious butt hair-pulling and leg-biting.
* The treecats in Creator/DavidWeber's ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' series are cute, cuddly, and great with children. They also can read minds and will turn into steel-clawed, near-unstoppable furry buzzsaws of death and destruction when they detect someone planning to harm those they care about. A treecat has only two categories of enemies: those that have been appropriately dealt with, and those that are still alive.
** Not to forget Shannon "Oops!" Foraker.
* Melissa from ''Literature/{{Dreamsnake}}''. Undersized, [[TheWoobie vulnerable]], twelve-year-old [[spoiler:abuse survivor]]? Sure. Quite possibly ''the'' [[LittleMissBadass bravest character in the book]]? Yeah; that, too.
* Gazzy and Angel from ''Literature/{{Maximum Ride}}''.Sure, they're cute and all, being the youngest members of the group, but [[{{Gasshole}} Gazzy]] can blow you up with the MANY explosives he keeps somewhere in his clothes while [[CreepyChild Angel]] can effectively [[MindManipulation control your mind]]
* In the ''Literature/RainbowMagic'' series, Rachel and Kirsty are very young and cute, but they defeat Jack Frost every time he causes trouble.
* Literature/DianaTregarde. Barely five feet tall, and compared at one point to a music-box ballerina. She can take you apart with karate, a gun, or magical combat.
* ''Literature/SpectralShadows'' is full of animal characters, both feral and anthro. As such, this trope is inevitable.

* Rudi Mackenzie of the Literature/{{Emberverse}} starts his badass career quite early, when, at ''nine years old'', he fights against a picked force trying to kidnap him, and acquits himself nearly as well as do his two adult bodyguards. A handsome and personable boy, he then goes on to charm the daylights out of his captors, including IceQueen Tiphaine.

* Gwen Lancaster from ''Literature/TheCinderSpires'' is five feet tall and described as looking like a porcelain doll. In her first appearance she solves the problem of not being allowed to join the army by blowing up part of her parents' house. Then she gets army training and proper hardware...

* Scelties in ''Literature/BlackJewels'' are sapient Shetland Sheepdogs with the ability to use magic. Most of the time, they function as PluckyComicRelief, but Scelties with the right skill set have taken down full-grown combat-trained humans.

** [[BadassBookworm Hermione]] is the female badass {{Adorkable}}.

** [[ShrinkingViolet Neville Longbottom]] is THE badass {{Adorkable}}.

** ''Discworld/UnseenAcademicals'': Mr. Nutt. TheWoobie, UglyCute, NoSocialSkills, uses hilarious SesquipedalianLoquaciousness ("We must be bursting with machismo!"), starts out as an ExtremeDoormat, and could snap a person's neck with his bare hands. He never actually does anything of the sort, and one gets the impression he probably never would, but just threatening it is enough.
** Tiffany Aching, aged 9, invaded the kingdom of the [[FairFolk Elf Queen]] armed only with a [[FryingPanOfDoom frying pan]] and a gang of ViolentGlaswegian Smurfs in ''Discworld/TheWeeFreeMen''.
** Otto von Chriek from ''Discworld/TheTruth'' is this crossed with TheWoobie -- he's a reformed vampire who prances around in his neat suit and his thick Uberwäld accent, taking photographs and accidentally turning himself into dust every five minutes. But when his friend William gets in trouble, Otto casually beats up a team of muscled goons and scares the living bejeebers out of their boss, all while sporting a longsword in his chest and ''still'' maintaining his adorable FunnyForeigner front.

* ''Literature/EndlingTheLast'': Tobble is a small, fluffy wobbyk, but he repeatedly tells the others that they don't want to see an angry wobbyk. When he finally gets in a fight, he's easily capable of defeating humans much larger than him.

%% * Alisa in the ''Literature/AliceGirlFromTheFuture'' series.

** The Archive is a prepubescent girl who shows her Badassitude when she's attacked by Red Court vampires while she's moderating a duel. [[spoiler:She grabs a piece of anti-life being used and, with sheer force of will, thrusts it into the vamps heads and torsos, vaporizing them]]. In a later book she's attacked by a dozen fallen angels in an area cut off from magic. Using the little magic she could store in her tiny body she starts taking them down, two at a time, even while Harry carries her away. She even makes a point of trash talking the angels, although she's not that good at it. [[spoiler:She's only captured because the demons take advantage of her low body weight and gas the whole area.]] She's also very fond of [[CutenessProximity cats]] and renders official documents in crayon.

%% * Huang Rong, from ''Literature/LegendOfTheCondorHeroes''.

** Tiffany Aching, aged 9, invaded the kingdom of the borderline-EldritchAbomination [[FairFolk Elf Queen]] armed only with a [[FryingPanOfDoom frying pan]] and a gang of ViolentGlaswegian Smurfs in ''Discworld/TheWeeFreeMen''.

* The Disreputable Dog of ''Literature/OldKingdom'' series is an adorable (if somewhat snarky) dog who's absolutely devoted to the welfare of her mistress. She's also [[spoiler: one of the seven most powerful beings in existence]].

* Gwen Lancaster from ''Literature/TheCinderSpires'' is five feet tall and described as looking like a porcelain doll. In her first appearance she solves the problem of not being allowed to join the army by blowing up part of her parents' house. Then she gets army training and proper hardware...

* ''Literature/ADeadlyPresence'': The leopards.

* Danner Bramblethorn of ''Literature/TheIronTower'' is a {{Hobbit|s}} [[TheBerserker Berserker]]. Yes, really. In the last battle of the trilogy, he runs at the walls against a horde of goblins ranting about how he's "the King of the Rillrock".