History Main / ProudWarriorRaceguy

->"''You ask a krogan if he'd rather find a cure for the [[DepopulationBomb genophage]], or [[HiredGuns fight for credits]], and [[BloodKnight he'll choose fighting — every time]]. [[PlanetOfHats It's just who we are]], [[PlayerCharacter Shepard]]. [[YouCantFightFate I can't change that. No one can]].''"

* Often invoked in [[MeaningfulNames Onomastics]] which are a kind of micro-folklore. The Royal Navy once commissioned the Tribal class destroyers named after various [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin tribes]] which had a reputation for this. Several athletic teams also. Some personal names too; Norman is the first that comes to mind. Then there is Frank.

* The Dothraki from ''ASongOfIceAndFire'' are based on the "violent raider" image of Mongols while the ironborn are a Viking-ish culture, but resemble more a pirates race than the historical Vikings. The wildlings have aspects of the trope, but are more anarchic in nature. The Northmen, meanwhile, reflect the "code of honor" aspect-

* To some extent, the centaurs, and to an even greater extent, the giants in ''HarryPotter''.

* The half-man, half-dragon race of Shokan in ''MortalKombat'', the most famous of which is Goro.

* the Career district tributes in The Hunger Games, who are trained from childhood to fight and to treat the Games like a game and an honorable tournament. They usually proudly volunteer at the reapings for the opportunity to win and bring pride, honor, and of course, extra food to their distict.

* The title creatures in the ''Film/{{Predator}}'' movies. Well, they're more like Proud ''Hunter'' Race Guys. But so damn proud of hunting that they even stalk ''Franchise/{{Alien}}s'' as big game. As they become more skilled, they hunt more dangerous game. They view the Aliens as little more then deer, and use them as a RiteOfPassage, to see what young Predators are strong enough to survive. In the expanded universe of the books and comics, older Predators may attain enough honor to essentially retire from hunting. A clan leader would be exceptionally stronger and a much better fighter than any of the Predators commonly encountered in either the movies or comics. The females typically don't hunt, because they're massive -- on a similar scale to the Queen Aliens vs the warrior/drone Aliens -- and would be unlikely to encounter a species worthy of an honorable hunt.

* One of the recurring themes of the New Zealand film (and book) OnceWereWarriors, about a family of modern-day Maori.

* Chewbacca and the other Wookiees in the''Franchise/StarWars'' [[StarWarsExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]]. They have customs like the [[IOweYouMyLife life-debt]] and a strict taboo against using their tree-climbing claws in a fight.

While most commonly seen in science fiction programs in the guise of RubberForeheadAliens, the Proud Warrior Race Guy is not limited to that genre. Consider Hawk in ''Spenser For Hire'', B.A. in ''Series/TheATeam'', and Tonto in ''TheLoneRanger'' or Kato in ''Franchise/TheGreenHornet''. This trope currently tends to be limited to SF because applying it to human races really skirts the bounds of current racial sensitivities. You don't see a lot of the NobleSavage anymore either, except as alien races, for the same reason.

* The ''[[TheLegendOfDrizzt Drizzt]]'' novels were originally supposed to be about a Proud Warrior Race Guy, Wulfgar son of Beornegar of the Tribe of Elk (one of the barely-Viking-ish warrior tribes of the northern region of Faerun), captured in battle and made an indentured servant by a dwarf king. He eventually went out the way all {{Proud Warrior Race Guy}}s want to -- defending friends and family from a great menace, and succeeding. Of course, [[BackFromTheDead he didn't stay dead for more than three books]] -- but that was over six years of world time.

** There are a number of other {{Proud Warrior Race}}s in ''Traveller''. A number are human sub-cultures, [[HumansAreWarriors which figures]], of course. Notable are the Azhanti whose religion demands that they seek glory.

A specific subtrope of BloodKnight, the ProudWarriorRaceGuy seeks battle and bloodshed because his culture teaches that [[AsskickingEqualsAuthority doing so is the greatest source of personal honor]] and {{glory|Seeker}}. This [[PlanetOfHats Proud Warrior Race]] will often be based on [[FantasyCounterpartCulture one of several real world cultures]] who are perceived to have acted this way, such as the {{Samurai}}, [[ThreeHundred Spartans]], [[HornyVikings Vikings]], and [[BarbarianTribe Mongols]]. They are often a MartyrdomCulture. The ProudWarriorRaceGuy is almost always a hero. If evil, he will probably be the WorthyOpponent.

While most commonly seen in science fiction programs in the guise of RubberForeheadAliens, the ProudWarriorRaceGuy is not limited to that genre. Consider Hawk in ''Spenser For Hire'', B.A. in ''Series/TheATeam'', and Tonto in ''TheLoneRanger'' or Kato in ''Franchise/TheGreenHornet''. This trope currently tends to be limited to SF because applying it to human races really skirts the bounds of current racial sensitivities. You don't see a lot of the NobleSavage anymore either, except as alien races, for the same reason.

Interestingly enough, the best-known characters of this type in recent TV history not completely covered in makeup and prosthetics ([[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Worf]], [[Series/{{Andromeda}} Tyr]], and [[Series/StargateSG1 Teal'c]]) are all black. Whether (and if so, [[UnfortunateImplications why]]) this is a key component of the ProudWarriorRaceGuy is an open question (see also ScaryBlackMan). It may be because of the UnfortunateImplications of having a warlike race of white people who believe themselves to be superior to other races.

See also BloodKnight and BarbarianTribe. See WarriorPoet for what happens when the ProudWarriorRaceGuy becomes more developed. Often is fond of being InHarmsWay, and is a GlorySeeker wanting to be FamedInStory. They often are of the mistaken belief that this means they have a BadassArmy, but often are proven wrong. May be from a MartyrdomCulture. Frequently crossed with or has strong elements of the NobleSavage. Being a culture singularly focused on the warrior way, anyone performing non-warrior roles frequently suffer from KlingonScientistsGetNoRespect.

* Prince Acroyear of the Acroyears, from Marvel's toy-licensed comic, ''{{Micronauts}}''. Worth noting because he's one of the earliest mass-market appearances of the ProudWarriorRaceGuy as a stock crew member on a SpaceOpera CoolShip. It's also worth noting that he's portrayed as dark-skinned, despite otherwise-alien features -- i.e., "played by an African-American". That's not just incidental, either: a major plot point has his albino brother driven to madness/evil/betrayal by his perceived inferiority.

** In stories which occur during the wars with humans, the Kzinti are more like [[BloodKnight Blood Knights]]. They are far more brutal and have no problem with killing off people for any reason, while a ProudWarriorRaceGuy tends to be more noble and spares non combatants.

* In the novel ''AgentOfTheTerranEmpire'' the protagonist Imperial secret agent Dominic Flandry is kidnapped by a race of ProudWarriorRaceGuy. They sneer at him for being part of the "decadent" Empire. It takes him quite a bit of work but he winds up [[spoiler:corrupting them all into fighting a civil war over power. He points out that their whole system of honor wasn't really too embedded into the culture, otherwise he could have never convinced so many to abandon their principles when power was offered to them]].
* The ''[[TheLegendOfDrizzt Drizzt]]'' novels were originally supposed to be about a ProudWarriorRaceGuy, Wulfgar son of Beornegar of the Tribe of Elk (one of the barely-Viking-ish warrior tribes of the northern region of Faerun), captured in battle and made an indentured servant by a dwarf king. He eventually went out the way all {{Proud Warrior Race Guy}}s want to -- defending friends and family from a great menace, and succeeding. Of course, [[BackFromTheDead he didn't stay dead for more than three books]] -- but that was over six years of world time.
** Drizzt himself is basically a ProudWarriorRaceGuy, having grown up for around 30 years in an underground city full of vicious assassins who are trained from birth in the most efficient, vicious ways of killing living things. His homeland is, in essence, a gigantic, sadistic special forces unit (his race possess remarkable prowess in the areas of stealth and unit tactics, while at the same time possessing a huge superiority complex over all other living creatures including each other and having a vicious sadistic streak, making them more Arrogant Warrior Race Guys). It sounds like he's even more noble and sacrifice-loving than any Proud Warrior Race Guy ever, but he possesses a remarkable survival instinct and is portrayed as too BadAss to actually die, even when he tries self-sacrifice. [[spoiler: He does die once, in a duel to the death against his archenemy, but only for one page, not counting the year between the end of the book he dies in and the very first page of the next.]]

** King Yrcanos (played by BrianBlessed!) in the story "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E2Mindwarp Mindwarp]]" is a more positive example of a ProudWarriorRaceGuy than the ones listed above; he is slightly ludicrous in his constant blustering but mostly on the side of right.

** Trolls are a much more ruthless and usually xenophobic flavor of {{ProudWarriorRaceGuy}}. Only the Darkspear and Zandalari treat other races with anything besides general contempt.

* ''VideoGame/BetrayalAtKrondor'' has a subversion of this in Gorath, a [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy moredhel]] whose distinguishing feature is his weariness of the self-destructive battle-crazed ways of his people.

* ''StarControl 2'' gives us a total of three species of ProudWarriorRaceGuy: the thuggish Thraddash, the vaguely Scottish Yehat and the vaguely Japanese Shofixti. The Thraddash regularly lose centuries of achievement in determining what the strongest Culture is.
* The Trophies from ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' are an entire species of ProudWarriorRaceGuy since all they do is fight, or watch people fighting. The trophies consider not being able to fight like being dead.

--> '''Carth''': I'm not a warrior, I'm a soldier. There's a difference. Warriors attack and conquer, they prey on the weak. [[MomentOfAwesome Soldiers defend and protect the innocent]] - [[TakeThat mostly from warriors.]]
** He also brings up a painfully valid point in the same conversation: what happens to the ProudWarriorRaceGuy when he ''loses''?

->"''You ask a krogan if he'd rather find a cure for the [[DepopulationBomb genophage]], or [[HiredGuns fight for credits]], and [[BloodKnight he'll choose fighting — every time]]. [[PlanetOfHats It's just who we are]], [[PlayerCharacter Shepard]]. [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch I can't change that]]. No one can.''"

** Some of the other races see the [[HumansAreWarriors humans as this]], since their debut on the galactic society scene was to figuratively bloody the Turians' noses in the "First Contact War", to say nothing of the rapid and aggressive expansions they've made since then. Many Council races consider Humanity to be a 'sleeping giant'. Only 3% of their populace serves in the military, less than any other council race. If they really wanted to, they could do some serious damage.
*** Actually, only 3% of human males of age volunteer for the military. Assuming lifespan of 150 years and population of 11,6 billion people, 79,9 million males reach military age annually. If 3% of these volunteer, and if term of service is 3 years on average, then standing Systems Alliance military is 7,19 million personnell.

** With the fourth expansion, the [[BeePeople Mantid]] seems to run on this trope, along with some {{Blue and Orange Morality}} thrown in for good measure. To elaborate, their social system implies sending their young to {{Zerg Rush}} a great wall expy and kill as many pandaren as they can, and those who survive can return to their tree cities and be given their social status in accordance to their deeds/kills/conquests. These practices pretty much assures that the mantid who [[TrainingFromHell survive into adulthood]] are adept warriors in whatever [[BloodKnight area]] [[SummonBiggerFish they]] [[UniversalPoison choose]] [[MakeMeWannaShout to]] [[StuffBlowingUp specialize]] [[GeneticEngineering in]]. The kicker, they [[spoiler: do all this as a [[ReligionofEvil form of worship]] to one of the [[EldritchAbomination Old Gods]], their [[GodofEvil "master"]], with the ominous implication they will use the evolved warriors/tactics/technologies they get from this {{social darwinist}} system to [[OmnicidalManiac kill]] or [[EternalWar worse]] all the other races should their God ever come back. Even [[FromBadtoWorse worse]], the majority of their race has been corrupted by the [[EldritchAbomination Sha of Fear]], who have skipped the whole waiting for our god to return and went straight to {{zerg rush}} [[CrapsaccharineWorld Pandaria]].

** With the fourth expansion, the [[BeePeople Mantid]] seems to run on this trope, along with some {{Blue and Orange Morality}} thrown in for good measure. To elaborate, their social system implies sending their young to {{Zerg Rush}} a great wall expy and kill as many pandaren as they can, and those who survive can return to their tree cities and be given their social status in accordance to their deeds/kills/conquests. These practices pretty much assures that the mantid who [[TrainingFromHell survive into adulthood]] are adept warriors in whatever [[BloodKnight area]] [[SummonBiggerFish they]] [[UniversalPoison choose]] [[MakeMeWannaShout to]] [[StuffBlowingUp specialize]] [[GeneticEngineering in]]. The kicker, they [[spoiler: did this before being corrupted by the [[EldritchAbomination Sha of Fear]], now their motivation for [[ZergRush zerg rushing]] [[CrapsaccharineWorld Pandaria]] is [[OmnicidalManiac another trope completely]]]]

** Not really. All you had to do was to die with your weapon in hands - that gave you 50/50 chance you will go straight to Halls of Valhala.

* Strongly hinted, so far, at being the [[PlanetOfHats hat]] of the [[TheReptilians Draken]] in the upcoming {{MMO|RPG}} ''[=WildStar=]''.

* The Saiyans from Manga/DragonBall Z (of whom Vegeta and Goku are the only pure-blooded survivors). Their instinct to fight in addition to their incredible natural strength, ability to transform into giant apes under a full moon, and, later in the series, their power to become Super Saiyans, makes them hugely dangerous and feudal; though Vegeta, the Prince of all Saiyans (as he is very quick to point out), seems under the impression that he's the last of a race of noble, honourable warriors that lived by their strength alone. Goku and half-Saiyans like Goten and Trunks have less of an idea of honour but retain the Saiyan fighting instinct. In the former's case, Vegeta hints the Saiyan sense of honour is inherent in pure-blooded Saiyans since Goku knows nothing of Saiyan culture, and still would've rather died (or gave up the fight) then achieve victory over an opponent by eating a senzu to win.

* [[BrokenBird Pai Thunder]] from ''Anime/{{Dangaioh}}'' initially refuses to team with NaiveEverygirl Mia Alice because she is not warrior-like. As it turns out, Pai is genetically predisposed to violence, [[spoiler: because she is really Barius, the daughter of pirate warlord The Banker. Once her father tries to force her kill one of her classmates and Mia bails her out, she accepts Mia's leadership]]
* Interestingly inverted in ''PrincessMononoke''; although Ashitaka does come from a tribe of historical proud warrior race guys, by now they just want to be left alone, and he only fights when he has to, or when his curse makes him. It's actually San, who was RaisedByWolves, who's the berserker type.

[[folder:Film]]

* The BelisariusSeries is stuffed to the brim with these what with Persians, Rajputs, and Axumites. In rather a subversion the most BadassArmy of them all is the Roman Army which really is not this as they are {{Combat Pragmatist}}s who put [[HonorBeforeReason reason equal to honor]] in priority. The Malwa are not particularly badass though some of their vassals are. Malwa also do not put HonorBeforeReason; however, that is because in their case, unlike everyone else, they have almost no honor at all.

* In the sci-fi trilogy ''The Damned'' by AlanDeanFoster, ''humanity'' is the proud warrior race. By virtue of being the only species in the galaxy that has evolved to be able to stomach fighting and killing other sentient beings, without fainting out of horror or revulsion, humanity is freakishly strong (capable of breaking other species' bones just by swatting their hands away), enormously resilient and completely batshit crazy. So much so, in fact, that the galactic community refuses to grant humanity citizenship for centuries after co-opting them to fight in a war against the ScaryDogmaticAliens.

*** As an amusing side note Tooks and Brandybucks are the closest thing hobbits have to this. Of course neither are really a ProudWarriorRace but they have that reputation among other hobbits but both have a slightly greater tolerance for adventurous eccentrics. The chief of the Tooks is head of the Shire Muster, and Bandobras the Bullroarer (who repelled an orc-raid) was a Took. Brandybucks live near the border closer to danger. And it was a Brandybuck that helped slay [[TheUndead the Witch-King]].

*** Brandybucks might after all come pretty close to qualifying. They live near the Old Forest and have a tradition of StaringDownCthulhu. As Merry tells it at one time a number of evil magical trees tried to invade Buckland and the Brandybucks chopped them down. And when the Nazgul tried to raid Fatty Bolger's house the first thing they did on hearing of it was to sound an alarm and try to assemble an army of hobbits to fight off the Nazgul! They are MoreThanMeetsTheEye.

* By extension, the Worf equivalent in ''StarWreck'', Dwarf, and his race, the Plingons.