History Main / EgomaniacHunter

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Clayton_8552.png
[[caption-width:166:[[JerkAss What a dick.]]]]

[[quoteright:350:[[{{Disney.Tarzan}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/clayton_4482.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"Africa was made for ''me''!"]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* TheodoreRoosevelt, the twenty-sixth President of the United States, could be seen as an Egomaniac Hunter. In his home on Long Island, every other piece of furniture is some part of an animal. Every wall has animal heads on it.
** Subverted when you think of his status as a conservationist, and then played straight ''again'' when you realize that it was probably just so he didn't run out of animals to hunt.
* British writer Lord Dunsany - when some zebras escaped from a zoo, he hunted them in the middle of central London.
* Ted Nugent. Hunts really large bears in Michigan with a bow and arrow. Donates much of the meat from his hunting to [[PetTheDog Feed the Homeless]]. Whether that's [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold good]] or [[JerkWithAHeartOfJerk not]] [[YourMileageMayVary depends]] how you feel about hunting.
* While most hunters at least try not to waste too much and sell any meat/hide that they don't want or can't use, there are some content with killing something, taking its head as a trophy and maybe a few pounds of meat, and leaving the rest of it to rot while they head merrily back home. Did I mention that most hunters like medium-sized game (especially deer), which average about ''a hundred'' pounds?
** To be fair, though, whatever's left of that animal ''will'' be used by ''something''. Most likely a vulture, but [[WhatMeasureIsANonCute more likable]] animals like wolves, lynx, and pumas have been known to scavenge carrion when hungry (assuming there are any around...humans tend to discourage large predators on their favorite hunting grounds). Wasteful and senseless on the part of the hunter, yes, but at least TheCircleOfLife knows how to make up for them.
* Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria (who's assassination triggered WWI), according to TheOtherWiki, had a love of trophy hunting far in excess of the norm of his time. His diaries kept track of some 300,000 trophy kills, 5,000 of which were deer.

[[/folder]]

* Hemet Nesingwary from ''{{World of Warcraft}}'' fits this trope to a tee. His [[JonasQuinn son]] took over his original hunt when Hemet moved to Outland for bigger game to hunt, where he and his expedition proceeded to instruct players to slaughter an ''immense'' number of creatures in one of Outland's few pastoral wildernesses left. Then he left for Northrend, settled down in a primeval jungle (it makes sense when you get there) and cradle of life,and had the nerve to first demand assistance from a dead rhino spirit, then [[JerkAss refuse to leave as it asked, saying "no dead rhino'll stop me from hunting wherever I want!"]]\\

* A rare female example is Hunter from ''{{Neverwhere}}''. However, other than her obsession with hunting rare and powerful monsters, she's an extremely professional and reticent fighter and bodyguard, and doesn't showcase any of the other personality foibles that tend to go along with this trope.

* Ted Nugent. Hunts really large bears in Michigan with a bow and arrow. [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Donates]] much of the meat from his hunting to [[PetTheDog Feed the Homeless]].
** Even though he donates meat from those he kills, he still kills, and could easily donate cruelty-free food, making him more JerkWithAHeartOfJerk

* [[TheelderScrolls Hircine]] is an example of a divine being as one of these. He hunts solely for the sport, including having his own pack of hunting dogs (read: werevoles). Partakes in HuntingTheMostDangerousGame every so often.

* ''{{Sam and Max}} Hit the Road'' - Evil country music star Conroy Bumpus, who is out to capture the same Bigfoot the heroes of the game are trying to aid just so he can add it to his personal menagerie. His obsession is even lampshaded in a song he sings titled "King of the Creatures" which includes the lines "I trapped my first tiger before I could walk, killed me a bear when I was three there ain't nothing in the world that's much better, than exposing beasts to inhumanity!"

[[{{Disney.Tarzan}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/clayton_4482.jpg]]
[[caption-width:350:"Africa was made for ''me''!"]]

* Jaeger from the ''{{Robin}}'' comic book in TheDCU.
* UpperClassTwit and uber-jackass Maximillian Ramhoff from Will Pfeiffer's brief run on ''SwampThing'' was one of these; he makes a habit of hunting the rarest creatures possible and making elaborate trophies just because. For instance, he not only kills the last California Condor, he ''eats'' it. He also killed the Yeti, has a stuffed thunder lizard, made a coat out of the skunk ape, and sets his sights on Swamp Thing as the plot moves forward.

* Otto Orion, a.k.a. the Hunter, captured TheLegionOfSuperheroes and subjected them to a HuntingTheMostDangerousGame scenario in ''Adventure Comics'' #358. His son Adam later adopted his father's alias and M.O. and attempted to avenge his father, eventually becoming a member of [[LegionOfDoom The Legion of Supervillains]].
* GreenArrow foe Big Game.

* Roland Tembo from ''The Lost World: JurassicPark''.
** ''"Somewhere on this island is the greatest predator this world has ever known. The second greatest must hunt it down."''
*** I actually found him a lot more tolerable than the good guys, maybe its because he was just egocentric, rather than ''completely insane''.
**** It probably also has something to do with the fact that once the dinos escaped, he was the one with the most practical skills and plans for surviving.
*** Being played by Pete Postlethwaite doesn't hurt either.
** He falls somewhere between Egomaniac Hunter and GreatWhiteHunter, for sure.
* Clayton, the villain from ''Disney's {{Disney/Tarzan}}'', is one of these.
** Being played by {{BRIAN BLESSED}} doesn't hurt either.

* TriggerHappy Van Pelt from ''{{Jumanji}}'', which is a PunnyName. Also, if this guy gets bored, he's likely to try his hand at HuntingTheMostDangerousGame, so most of the examples on that page would also apply here.
** Disputed: Van Pelt wasn't Ax crazy or even after all of the protagonists, he was just hunting RobinWilliams' character, so this's more along the lines of a sociopath with a grudge or something similar.
** Van Pelt was rolled by Alan so he had to hunt him down.
** Although Alan ''did'' imply that the two of them had had run-ins before. Apparently Van Pelt "just finds everything about [Alan] offensive."
*** It could also be a ShoutOut to Williams' role as ''PeterPan'' in Hook. Just as Mr. Darling and Hook usually share an actor, so too does Van Pelt and Alan's father.
**** "A hunter from the darkest wild/''He'll make you feel just like a child''". Van Pelt ''is'' Alan's father, or at least the exaggerated 'Dad Hates Me' view he had of him as a kid.
***** Is it presumable that if you had a good relationship with your father, the hunter would be benevolent?
***** It seems that way. It does all seem to revolve around [[IronicHell your own neuroses]].

* The villain from the John Leguizamo film ''ThePest''.

* Charles Muntz from ''{{Up}}''.

* Julian from ''[[BookOfAmber The Chronicles of Amber]]'' combines this with EvilPrince, of course.
* Mustrum Ridcully from {{Discworld}} is quite heroic, but a fiend for hunting and fishing. According to ''Lords and Ladies'', "Mustrum Ridcully did a lot for rare species. For one thing, he kept them rare."

* [[SherlockHolmes Sebastian Moran]], Moriarty's right-hand man, apparently does a lot of this on the side.

* Unlike the example listed in Live Action TV below, the female Hunter in the novel version of ''{{Neverwhere}}'' is [[spoiler: willing to betray the heroes to Croup, Vandemar, and Inslington so she can gain a legendary spear. Why? All to hunt the even more legendary Beast of London.]]

* ''StarTrekVoyager''. The Hirogen are [[PlanetOfHats an entire species]] of {{Egomaniac Hunter}}s. One of them threatens to remove Seven of Nine's intestines as a trophy, as "Unusual relics are prized. Yours will make me envied by men and pursued by women." Seven, who rivals the Hirogen in the big ego stakes, is unimpressed.

* ''TheBeatles'' song ''The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill'' from the ''WhiteAlbum''.

* TheodoreRoosevelt, the twenty-sixth President of the United States, is this type, although he had his good side as well. Like most real life people, you can't just call him a egomaniac and leave it as that.
** If you ever visit his home in Long Island (it's a museum now), every other piece of furniture is some part of an animal. Not to mention every wall has animal heads on it.
** Teddy Roosevelt appears as a character in an episode of ''The Young IndianaJones Chronicles'' where Indy talks him out of shooting too many rare antelope because it might endanger their survival. Can anybody spell {{Aesop}}?
*** Well, it's not an unjustified one, anyway. Teddy Roosevelt put a lot of effort into conservation, founding the national park system for one thing.
* Another real-example is the British writer Lord Dunsany- on one occasion, when some zebras escaped from a zoo, he hunted them in the middle of central London.

* Hemet Nesingwary from ''{{World of Warcraft}}'' fits this trope to a tee. His [[JonasQuinn son]] took over his original hunt when Hemet moved to Outland for bigger game to hunt, where he and his expedition proceeded to instruct players to slaughter an ''immense'' number of creatures in one of Outland's few pastoral wildernesses left. Then he left for Northrend, settled down in a primeval jungle (it makes sense when you get there) and cradle of life,and had the nerve to first demand assistance from a dead rhino spirit, then [[JerkAss refuse to leave as it asked, saying "no dead rhino'll stop me from hunting wherever I want!"]]
** Amusingly, just as ''players'' tend to ''hate'' Hemet for his ridiculous egomania and his ''tedious'' quests (endless slaughter-fests for the most part), an organization of druids, D.E.H.T.A (Druids for the Ethical and Humane Treatment of Animals) has arisen with killing Nesingwary and his increasingly deranged followers as their sole goal.
** Isn't "Hemet Nesingwary" a [[SignificantAnagram rather transparent play]] on ErnestHemingway?
* Evil country music star Conroy Bumpus from ''{{Sam and Max}} Hit the Road'' who is out to capture the same Bigfoot the heroes of the game are trying to aid just so he can add it to his personal menagerie. His obsession is even lampshaded in a song he sings titled ?King of the Creatures? which includes the lines ?I trapped my first tiger before I could walk, killed me a bear when I was three ? there ain?t nothing in the world that?s much better, than exposing beasts to inhumanity!?

* Ozzik Sturn, who appears as the commander of the Imperial forces on Kashyyyk from ''TheForceUnleashed''. Sturn will hunt non-sapient game but particularly enjoys hunting sentients. When he first appears, he's wearing a sash made from the fur of Wookie slaves he hunted down and killed as though it were a badge of office. The main character also passes through his trophy room, which is filled with the skulls of various aliens from the Star Wars franchise. When you confront him, he mentions how he's grown tired of hunting Wookies and relishes the opportunity to kill a Jedi.

* Skulker from ''DannyPhantom''. That may be stretching it a bit, but all the good examples have already been said.
** Skulker can also be vengeful, as seen in his attitude towards Danny after Danny defeats him the first time. Even so, he acted the EgomaniacHunter role with Danny and Valerie, leading to an EnemyMine.

** ''TheBatman'' had a one-shot hunter in Killgore Steed (yet another PunnyName) who specializes in hunting endangered species (and the occasional human) in his [[SupervillainLair killer island death maze]]. He got his karmic come-uppance when The Joker killed him for a pair of hyenas.
* One of the ?Rabbit Seasons? trilogy had [[LooneyTunes Bugs and Daffy]] reading out of recipe books to set Elmer on each other. Elmer explains that he's a vegetarian, he just hunts for the sport.

* Parodied in ''TheSimpsons'', with a hunter character who says "Time for lunch" and fires blindly into the air, killing a condor, then catches it between two slices of bread and eats it. [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotAwesome With an intense look on his face]].

* In the ''TransformersGeneration1'' cartoon episode "Prime Target" featured Lord Chumley, who decided his hunting trophy collection would not be complete without the head of ''Optimus Prime''. Considering that in the opening of the episode he shoots down and ''mounts'' a Soviet fighter jet as if it were a downed game bird, well, he's probably insane too.
** Probably nothing, the guy is nuts. In order to bait Prime, he captures almost a dozen other Autobots. He even captures a couple Decepticons in the process of wearing Prime down, and later sets them free in hopes that they'll help him once things inevitably go south. Not to mention the capture of the Soviet fighter jet was causing political trouble unseen since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Many a fan probably smiles each time he sees the jerk dropped off for the Soviets tied to the nosecone of the same jet he stole.

* Nimrod, a recurring nemesis of the ''GalaxyRangers'', looks like an extra from ''{{Cats}}'' and acts like a crazed game show host, but don't underestimate him. In his introductory episode ("The Power Within"), he traps the Rangers in a HuntingTheMostDangerousGame scenario--after removing their badges to prevent them from accessing their AppliedPhlebotinum powers. We are also shown that Nimrod has done this several times before with other space travelers.
** Galaxy Rangers fandom has also referred to him as "a Thundercat on drugs." In a later episode, "Murder on the Andorian Express," he actually helps Doc and Niko take down a Crown assassin, explaining that his whole purpose for getting on the luxury liner in the first place was to hunt the assassin.

----
<<|AlwaysMale|>>
<<|{{Villains}}|>>

* Otto Orion, a.k.a. the Hunter, captured TheLegionOfSuperheroes and subjected them to a HuntingTheMostDangerousgame scenario in ''Adventure Comics'' #358. His son Adam later adopted his father's alias and M.O. and attempted to avenge his father, eventually becoming a member of [[LegionOfDoom The Legion of Supervillains]].

** Apparantley, one of the deer heads on his wall was meant to be ''Bambi's Mom.''

* Suruk The Slayer from ''{{Space Captain Smith}}'' and it's sequels.
* Prince Humperdink from ''{{The Princess Bride}}''.

* Kosarro Khan, a [[SuperSoldier Space Marine]] Captain from ''{{Warhammer40000}}'', has this kind of tendancy, as well as HuntingTheMostDangerousGame, attributed to him (and his chapter) in the backstory of the newer rulebooks.

[[folder: Web Comics]]

* In [[http://www.kiwisbybeat.com/minus39.html this]] ''[[{{Minus}} minus]]'' comic, what initially appears to be a fairly normal hunter is told that the lion he recently shot "wanted to have a proper go at [him]" and is given a pair of boxing gloves. What does he do? He ''boxes the lion'', of course!

[[/folder]]

* In an episode of the ''Dial M for Monkey'' shorts in ''[[DextersLaboratory Dexter's Laboratory]]'', the titular hero Monkey fought an alien hunter named, appropriately enough, ''Huntor'', who targeted the most dangerous game of all: heroes. Monkey defeated the heavily-armed hunter by relying on his jungle instincts rather then his superpowers.

[[VillainByDefault This character isn't very likeable in modern renditions.]] His, and it's almost always a man, usual traits include some of these: selfishness, recklessness, [[TriggerHappy trigger-happyness]], racism, bullheadedness and [[{{Pride}} arrogance]]. Older works show him in a [[GreatWhiteHunter more favorable light]] but often he's seen as decadent by them too. Extra points for having a [[TrophyRoom gallery of rare trophies]], [[GloryHound endangering others in his hunts]], gleefully shooting something that everyone knows is the [[LastOfHisKind last of its kind]] just so he can have it mounted and stuffed, or [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame chasing sapient game.]]

* General Zaroff from the short story (and later movie) ''Literature/{{The Most Dangerous Game}}''. Interestingly, the hero he tries to kill is a GreatWhiteHunter.

[[VillainByDefault This character isn't very likeable in modern renditions.]] His, and it's almost always a man, usual traits include some of these: selfishness, recklessness, [[TriggerHappy trigger-happyness]], racism, bullheadedness and [[{{Pride}} arrogance]]. Older works show him in a [[GreatWhiteHunter more favorable light]] but often he's seen as decadent by them too. Extra points for having a [[TrophyRoom gallery of rare trophies]], [[GloryHound endangering others in his hunts]], gleefully shooting something that everyone knows is the [[LastOfHisKind last of its kind]] just so he can have it mounted and stuffed, or [[TheMostDangerousGame chasing sapient game.]]

* Otto Orion, a.k.a. the Hunter, captured TheLegionOfSuperheroes and subjected them to a TheMostDangerousgame scenario in ''Adventure Comics'' #358. His son Adam later adopted his father's alias and M.O. and attempted to avenge his father, eventually becoming a member of [[LegionOfDoom The Legion of Supervillains]].

* TriggerHappy Van Pelt from ''{{Jumanji}}'', which is a PunnyName. Also, if this guy gets bored, he's likely to try his hand at TheMostDangerousGame, so most of the examples on that page would also apply here.

* The members of the ironically named "Endangered Dangerous Species Society" in the ''DoctorWho'' novel ''The Doctor Trap'' (including Lord Percy, a parody of the GreatWhiteHunter). And Sebastiene, who invites them to Planet 1 to [[TheMostDangerousGame hunt the Doctor]].

* Kosarro Khan, a [[SuperSoldier Space Marine]] Captain from ''{{Warhammer40000}}'', has this kind of tendancy, as well as hunting TheMostDangerousGame, attributed to him (and his chapter) in the backstory of the newer rulebooks.

* Nimrod, a recurring nemesis of the ''GalaxyRangers'', looks like an extra from ''{{Cats}}'' and acts like a crazed game show host, but don't underestimate him. In his introductory episode ("The Power Within"), he traps the Rangers in a TheMostDangerousGame scenario--after removing their badges to prevent them from accessing their AppliedPhlebotinum powers. We are also shown that Nimrod has done this several times before with other space travelers.

* Clayton in the DisneyAnimatedCanon [[{{Film.Tarzan}} version]] of ''{{Tarzan}}''.

[[{{Film.Tarzan}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/clayton_4482.jpg]]

* Clayton, the villain from ''Disney's {{Tarzan}}'', is one of these.

* Gaston from ''Film/BeautyAndTheBeast'' plays the character type totally straight. "''I use antlers in all of my decorating...''" He's also different from the norm by being a dimwitted narcissist, which is admittedly more characterization than most other examples get.

[[VillainByDefault This character isn't very likeable in modern renditions.]] His, and it's almost always a man, usual traits include some of these: Selfishness, recklessness, [[AxCrazy trigger-happyness]], racism, bullheadedness and [[{{Pride}} arrogance]]. Older works show him in a [[GreatWhiteHunter more favorable light]] but often he's seen as decadent by them too. Extra points for having a [[TrophyRoom gallery of rare trophies]], [[GloryHound endangering others in his hunts]], gleefully shooting something that everyone knows is the [[LastOfHisKind last of its kind]] just so he can have it mounted and stuffed, or [[TheMostDangerousGame chasing sapient game.]]

* In [[http://www.kiwisbybeat.com/minus39.html this]] [[{{Minus}} minus]] comic, what initially appears to be a fairly normal hunter is told that the lion he recently shot "wanted to have a proper go at [him]" and is given a pair of boxing gloves. What does he do? He ''boxes the lion'', of course!

* Flintheart Glomgold in DuckTales

[[caption-width:350:"Africa was made for ''me''."]]

[[caption-width:350:BANG BANG your mommy's dead.]]