Asskicking Leads To Leadership / Literature

#-L

• Visser Three, from the Animorphs series, in The Andalite Chronicles, is a Hork-Bajir Controller with the respectable rank of Sub-Visser Seven. He's promoted to a low Visser rank immediately upon (and explicitly because of) his infestation of Elfangor's commanding officer, making him the only Andalite-Controller in history. His rise turns meteoric from there. It helps that Visser Three had full access to all of the military knowledge in his host's (a high-ranking though disgraced Andalite warrior-prince) mind. Obtaining a prize like that would definitely warrant a promotion.
• Bazil Broketail: Norwul is a member of a primitive people, so it is only a given that as their toughest hunter and warrior, he commands the greatest respect among them and is chosen as their leader. Luckily for them, he is almost as much brains as he is brawns.
• The Biblical Judges were military leaders of ancient Israel (at the time a loose confederation of tribes) chosen to lead during times of war and were decided by this trope.
• Rehvenge in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series by J. R. Ward becomes the supreme ruler of the sympaths by essentially killing the ones in authority.
• The rank of queen in Branded by Clare London is determined by a war game-style generalship competition.
• The Brightest Shadow: Played with. The Catai are automatically given a higher rank than normal soldiers, but are subordinate to administrators and politicians. In several human organizations, all the leaders are those who can fight.
• In The Children of Húrin, this regularly becomes an issue for Turin. Unlike a lot of examples of this trope, he is both an incredibly dangerous warrior and an abundantly well-qualified tactician, and multiple times in the story, he rises right to the top of the chain of command on the basis of his excellent battle record and fearsome prowess. Unfortunately, while he's a great guy to have once a fight has started, he's too aggressive and proud to be the guy deciding when to fight, as his answer invariably ends up being "as soon as possible." At the time when Turin was active, organized opposition to Morgoth in Beleriand had been reduced to tatters, and every other leader recognized that the only way they were going to survive would be to stay hidden or Beneath Notice for as long as possible. Turin, meanwhile, is so determined to strike back that he keeps organizing war parties and taking part in conspicuous battles that, though successful, draw the eye of a military machine that they have no chance whatsoever of overcoming.
• In Codex Alera, Citizenship requires winning a witnessed duel with an existing Citizen, marrying an existing Citizen, or being granted Citizenship by the First Lord, generally for doing something completely awesome. It's largely hereditary, but that's because furycrafting power is largely hereditary. The biggest barrier to peasants who want to become Citizens is that you have to agree to get someone to duel you to earn Citizenship. A lot of women, especially, note that they can't get anyone to actually fight them, even if they're fully capable of throwing mountains at the chauvinistic jackasses.
• A Court of Thorns and Roses: Tamlin is a competent warrior and is a High Lord.
• Cradle Series: The world of Cradle has one rule: The strong can do as they like. There are strict rules of honor and the like, but even they mostly boil down to "I might piss off too many strong people if I do this." Everything is backed by threat of force. Eithan tries to rule more gently, but doesn't have much success, and has to throw his weight around.
• While Dynastical Council in Crest of the Stars evaluates not only the martial prowess of the potential candidates to the Jade Throne, it's still one of their major consideration, and to ascend to the title of Crown Prince, successful aspirant should rise in the military ranks to the position of Commander in Chief — with the Council constantly judging his or her performance and vetting the promotions accordingly.
• In The Dinosaur Lords, Jaume exploits this to get his highly-apprehensive subordinates to obey him. When a wild Allosaurus starts picking off camp followers, Jaume kills it himself rather than waiting for heavier weapons. It gives him few weeks' respite.
• In the Dirigent Mercenary Corps series, it's a minor plot point in the first book that officer cadets are not allowed to graduate and become officers until they've served a combat tour. Until then, they command no one and are just grunts like the enlisted men.
• The wizards of the Discworld were originally like this, with wizards rising through the ranks at the Unseen University by filling the recently vacated pointy shoes of their higher-ups. This state of affairs ended when the wizards ended up appointing Mustrum Ridcully to the post of Arch-Chancellor; not only did he come down like a ton of bricks on anyone trying it in his faculty, but he was also nigh impossible to kill. The wizards mellowed down shortly after. The desert warriors known as D'regs do this with a twist; the tribe is actually ruled by ancient traditions with little or no actual decision making to be done, so being the leader boils down to being the guy who gets to say, "Charge!". There are elders who could technically count as the true power since they advise when it is wise to charge...except they truly believe that it is always wise to charge.
• The Minotaur Empire in Dragonlance is all about this trope; anyone can become Emperor so long as they defeat the previous Emperor in a ceremonial (but very real and lethal) duel, and social and legal conflicts are also often solved in the arena. This becomes a plot point in the Minotaur Wars trilogy where a new Emperor comes to power after a coup, and even though he is a much better leader sizeable chunks of the population won't follow him because he dishonorably assassinated his predecessor rather than formally duelling him.
• In The Dresden Files: Many organizations work this way, either directly or indirectly. The White Court of Vampires betray one another to rise up the ranks as a matter of course. The Senior White Council are determined by seniority, and since knowledge is power in the setting, basically every member of the Senior Council is personally incredibly dangerous, although they technically don't get the position through strength or force. In general you can assume the leaders of any organization are also its most personally dangerous members, and it's even implied that having more people serving under you directly increases personal power as well.
• Subverted in Dune. Early on, Paul earns credibility among the Fremen by reluctantly killing one who challenged him to combat. The Fremen, like the Bedouin culture they loosely parallel, have a culture that values "honor," defended through bloodshed. Also, they expect their leaders to succeed by killing their predecessors. Though the Fremen take him for a Messiah and see his leadership as inevitable, he refuses to take the place of the tribe leader Stilgar by killing him. He takes power instead after an impassioned speech deploring the idea of sacrificing a loyal and talented soldier to such a brutal custom. This compels Stilgar to step down, and the Fremen accept Paul's leadership.
• In The Edge Chronicles, the roost-mother of the shrykes is very often the most ruthless and violent member of an already vicious race, and her presence is necessary in battle to keep younger and less disciplined flocks in line.
• In The Fires of Affliction. Sir Roland Balfour's martial skill earns him the top spot on the mission to find the Mystery Cult's base. But he makes poor decisions, disregards advice from people he doesn't like, and is easily outwitted.
• In Larry Niven's novel Footfall, the Fithp ultimately surrender unconditionally to the Humans and join their "herd" after Wes Dawson, aboard the Fithp mothership, overpowers its commander and takes control of it. He then performs a ceremonial gesture of placing his foot on top of the submitting commander's body, becoming the ship's new "Herdmaster".
• In For Love of Evil, Hell itself is an interesting subversion. When Satan first takes control, he finds it plays this trope straight. After proving his ability, he re-organizes Hell. Interestingly, his greatest power is the destruction of demons which in a complete subversion is solely based on the demons' belief and not any real ability.
• Jenna and Carum in the Great Alta Saga become king and queen of the Dales because they prove they're the best fighters in the army.
• In Grent's Fall, Osbert Grent is only king because he overthrew the Stanley dynasty. It's also how he loses his crown.
• In Guild Hunter, that's basically the way Angels' society works, with the Archangels, the most powerful of them all, reigning supreme.
• In Harry Harrison's The Hammer and the Cross the Ragnarssons and their father are all famous champions with a history of victorious battles behind them, and this fame allows them to attract followers. In One King's Way, Shef duels the King of Sweden to the death for the right to the throne. Truth in Television to a great extent, the Norse really were that way.
• The Heroes of Olympus:
  • One of the two possible ways to get promoted to praetor.
  • Still in full effect for General Tyson of the Cyclops Army too.
  • Also the method by which the Amazons can challenge for the queenship.
• Honor Harrington: In The Honor Of The Queen, the religiously conservative Graysons initially can't handle Honor's mere presence, due to their prejudice against women. They simply can't believe that a woman can in any way be capable of a military command. This changes after the planetary newsnet gets their hands on a security-camera recording of Honor decimating a small army of armed assassins who were trying to kill the planet's leader — with her bare hands. Afterwards, nobody dares question her worthiness of command, suggesting that they're following the logic of this trope. Later on, she defeats a master swordsman in a public Duel to the Death, while weakened from an attempted assassination, then proceeds to win a Space Battle, all before seeing a doctor. This shuts everyone else up.
• The urgals of the Inheritance Cycle. Their entire social structure is based on feats of combat, meaning that if you don't win duels and raid enemies' villages, you'll never advance in society. One other way for some of them to advance is a trial of manhood passage, where they go and kill a dangerous animal barehanded. We hear from one chieftain (who is of a larger 8-foot tall sub-species called a kull, take note), that he's the chief because during the passage he went and killed a "cave bear" while everyone else went after wolves. He also states that a cave bear was larger than an adult kull, and when we see one later we find he wasn't exaggerating.
• In The Irregular at Magic High School, magicians tend towards this trope even when they're in democratic systems. During the election of a school's Absurdly Powerful Student Council, Miyuki silences unruly dissenters by freezing everyone in the hall solid. When she'd been escorted out and the campaign resumed, there were a disturbing amount of write-in votes cast for her.
• In the Kate Daniels series, the Beast Lord is said to rule over the 300+ Shapeshifters of Atlanta specifically for this.
• Keeper of the Lost Cities: The ogre ruler is chosen by victory in battle. Any willing candidates spar to the death, and whoever is left standing becomes king or queen.
• In Robert E. Howard's Kull / Bran Mak Morn story "Kings of the Night", Wulfhere insists that Kull fight him for the leadership. Kull, though not knowing his language, deduced it before being told.
• The Lensman series by E. E. "Doc" Smith had multiple cultures which followed this method (though this is usually explained by the fact that all of the subject cultures consciously patterned themselves after the primary culture). The Eddorians, the Ploor, the Eich, possibly the Delgonians, and the entire Council of Boskone, fit this trope perfectly. Kim Kinnison even uses this to take over the entire bad guy's empire and become the Overlord of Thrale by assassinating the previous Overlord of Thrale, which was the accepted way of moving up in the world. It was stated that all of these cultures were fairly stable, in that underlings would not try for promotion until they were fairly certain that they could succeed, and in the meantime they had to produce for their superiors or they would be replaced, either by their superiors for not producing or by their own underlings for failure to protect themselves.

M-Z

• A Mage's Power: The Dragon's Lair hierarchy is built with this in mind. Proving that he can kick ass is how Eric promotes from Apprentice to Novice. At the top of each Squad is a captain more powerful than several regular members and at the top of the guild is The Dragoness, who could fight all five captains at once.
• The Seguleh in the Malazan Book of the Fallen have their social hierarchy based entirely on martial skill. They were founded by an army of the First Empire after the Empire was destroyed. It is later revealed that they have a parallel civilian hierarchy that exercises authority on all internal matters that don't pertain to the army. While the top ranks of the army act as the rulers of the nation, there seem to be other paths of advancement available to those not skilled with the sword.
• The Mortal Instruments:
  • On more than one occasion when Luke has needed to acquire some allies in a hurry his solution has been to find the nearest werewolf pack, kill the Alpha and take over as leader.
  • In City of Heavenly Fire, Maia takes down an usurper of the New York Clan in an absolutely vicious Curb-Stomp Battle which leads to her becoming temporary head and later permanent head of the New York Clan after Luke's retirement.
• Night World: Jez's gang from Huntress (1997) believes in this, respecting strength and combat prowess. It's implied that the reason Jez recently took over leadership from Morgead is because she proved herself stronger and she's keen not to show weakness in front of them (including not flinching when a skinhead shoots her in the arm). A year later, when Jez needs to get back into the gang to find the Wild Power, Jez challenges Morgead to a fight, knowing it's the only way she'll ever be accepted back. This poses a problem though, as Jez hasn't been drinking blood or using her vampire abilities for around a year, putting her at a disadvantage.
• Averted in The Obsidian Trilogy where Kellen's fighting prowess earns him the respect of his commanders, but he is unable to get his greater strategic goals taken seriously until he is able to succeed in the command of a small squad.
• In Jonathan Maberry's Patient Zero, the protagonist Joe Ledger is introduced to his competitors for leadership of Echo Team and told to think outside the box; six seconds later other five candidates (vets of the Navy SEALs, Marines, Army Rangers, and Delta Force) are flat on the floor.
• In Steven Kellogg's book Pecos Bill, Bill whoops both a gigantic rattlesnake and a grizzy/puma/tarantula/gorilla monster. As no one had even survived before, the local gang falls immediately in line when Bill rides up on the monster holding the snake and asks which member is the leader:
  Gun Smith: I was, but now you is.
• In the C. S. Lewis novel Perelandra, the hero, Ransom, has to prevent Satan from tempting alien Adam and Eve. He first tries to do this through debate, but the devil keeps winning the arguments. The hero decides to settle matters with good ol' fisticuffs. Because the proper response to losing a debate is to beat up your opponent to prove that you're right despite logic.^note Ransom does recognize that 'Eve' did pass the actual initial temptation test (and lasted longer than our Eve), it's just that Satan keeps on going. The boxing/MMA match took a lot of internal justification for him to think that it might be allowed as a way to end things.
• The Hyerne nation in Philosopher In Arms chooses its queen through one-on-one combat.
• The leaders of the Holnists in The Postman. The Holnists are a gang of Crazy Survivalist social Darwinists, so naturally the men in charge are Super Soldiers.
• The Power portrays this trope as the fundamental root of misogyny and human gender roles. Because, for most of human history, the question of who was in charge came down to brute physical strength, and the average man was physically larger than the average woman, men claimed authority and dominance over women, with the few matriarchies and egalitarian societies emerging from those cultures that were not organized around violence and warfare. So when women suddenly gain the power to shoot electricity from their hands and disable even the biggest, strongest men, gender roles turn upside down, especially in less egalitarian countries where violence (especially against women) was a fact of daily life. And when World War III plunges the entire world back into the Stone Age, matriarchy becomes the governing principle of most post-apocalyptic societies.
• Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Mage society as a rule has a tendency to default to this, since its overriding ethos is to push the limits of magic whatever the cost. At Kimberly Magic Academy in particular, the winning faction in the upperclassmens' combat league is likely to also win the poll for Student Council President (who then gets to appoint the rest of the student council), which takes place shortly after. This tendency causes an extra wrinkle in volume 7 when outgoing president Alvin Godfrey, who leads the Campus Watch, is severely wounded by Cyrus Rivermoore, who steals his sternum and a chunk of his etheric body right after the qualifying round. In volume 8 the Watch organizes a posse to go after Cyrus, while his Social Darwinist opponent Leoncio Echevalria conspires to delay the posse so that Watch candidate Vera Miligan loses to his Puppet King Percival Whalley.
• In Riesel Tales: Two Hunters, the titular planet Riesel is ruled by whoever has the most firepower.
• Schooled in Magic:
  • Stripped down to its barest essentials, this is the foundation of magical society. The system of etiquette among magicians and Houses is couched in terms of "honor, obligation and respect," but what that actually means is that it's a way to keep walking One Man Armies from killing each other.
  • In particular, this is the essence of a Lone Power. Void has no position within magical society (though he could easily get one) but everyone respects his power and he's a vital ally in the war against the Blighted Lands because of his vast magical ability. His authority is entirely derived from his ability to kick ass.
• Second Apocalypse: Examined in the second series. Anisurimbor Kellhus has conquered most of the known world by posing as a living embodiment of the God, displaying seemingly impossible mental, physical and sorcerous abilities. When he reveals to one of his Believer-Kings, Coithus Saubon, that his religious claims are all lies, Saubon is surprisingly unaffected. Saubon has always worshiped Kellhus's indisputable power more than his religious claims. Anyone who can kick that much ass is worthy of complete devotion.
• In the Shadowleague books, Aliana convinces Galveron that this might be true, in which case he would be most fit to be leader.
• In one Sister Fidelma novel, King Colgu of Cashel is injured by an assassin — who isn't even trying to kill him, since under ancient Irish law a chieftain was required by law to step down if unable to physically lead his people in battle, thus making way for a rival.
• In Six of Crows, Kaz keeps his leadership role usually through brokering information, but he simply wipes out the competition in Crooked Kingdom to take over the Dregs. This seems to be the accepted way of things among the Barrel gangs.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • The Dothraki explicitly operate this way: the most badass warrior calls the shots and leads the horde. The Dothraki's leadership only lasts as long as their Khal is strong and alive. If the Khal is seen as weak or are killed, the Dothraki pick the next strongest warrior as their Khal.
  • In Westeros, one of the causes (though not the only one) of the Blackfyre Rebellions was that a dying king awarded his Cool Sword to his warrior-like bastard, as opposed to his bookwormish natural son. In Tales of Dunk and Egg, a Blackfyre King Incognito is in a tourney where all his opponents have been bribed to let him win. When he goes up against a genuine opponent he gets knocked into the mud, and no-one follows him when he later tries to rally his forces for a Last Stand.
  • Robert Baratheon is a deconstruction of the trope. Robert is a skilled military commander and a fearsome warrior, but he didn't really know what to do with the Iron Throne of Westeros once he'd won it. Robert turns out to be a completely ineffective ruler in peacetime and knows that he doesn't have the right skills for the job.
    • Also partially averted in that Robert's grandmother was a daughter of Aegon V Targaryen, making him the closest thing to a living Targaryen outside of Aerys II's family. The Rebellion used that to legitimize Robert's claim to the Iron Throne, and the other leaders of the Rebellion (Eddard and Jon Arryn) held the belief that made him the obvious choice for king. Several other characters do not hold much stock in that interpretation... Including Robert, who bemoans that Ned should have seated himself on the throne instead.
  • Jon Snow is a subversion of the trope. While he is one of the characters most fitting a classic fantasy hero in this series complete with combat skills and a Cool Sword, Jon must depend more on his intellect rather than on his fighting prowess. When Jon first arrives at Castle Black, the Night's Watch smith Donal Noye shames him when he defeats the other new Watch recruits with his sword fighting skills during training, pointing out to Jon that he had a highborn upbringing in a castle and was trained under a master-at-arms his whole life while the other recruits are lowborn and never held a sword before. This makes Jon realize how tough the other boys had it and he passes on his combat knowledge to them, wherein they all become True Companions. When Jon wants to leave the Watch to join his brother Robb's army in grief over his father's execution, Lord Commander Mormont points out that his fighting prowess would not help his brother's campaign significantly due to already being on the scope of large armies. After the first book, although he engages in a few fights and a battle, all major developments with Jon — especially after gaining the authority of Lord Commander of the Night's Watch — primarily depend on Jon's intellectual abilities, such as decision-making, negotiation, research, and perception skills rather than his ability to swing a sword.
  • The Free Folk/Wildlings also believe in this trope... sort of. True to their nature as 'free folk,' they don't care much for titles, fealty or bloodlines, but they will follow someone who's strong and competent enough to be worthy of leadership. Being 'strong' isn't a purely physical thing, however, as the king-beyond-the-wall during the book earned the title by being charismatic, good at negotiating and having a unified vision for the Free Folk to follow. Mance is a skilled warrior who defeated or humbled several chieftains to build his coalition, but that's not the only reason most Free Folk follow him.
    Tormund: See, lad, that's why he's king and I'm not. I can outdrink, outfight, and outsing him, and my member's thrice the size o' his, but Mance has cunning.
  • Plays a part in the backstory as well. Aegon the Conqueror was not a native of Westeros, and had no real claim to any of the lineages who already claimed kingship. What he did have was three dragons. With that, he took out of six of the seven kingdoms and had himself declared king.
  • This then took precisely one generation to backfire tremendously, since Westeros also subscribe to Asskicking Leads to Leadership. Aegon's immediate successor Aenys was a generally weak and ineffectual king, much to the dismay of those loyal to him. When he died, his half-brother Maegor declared himself king, despite Aenys having children who by rule of law inherited the throne. The first man to point this to Maegor was told the king was whoever claimed the crown and sat the throne. And then decapitated.
  • Jaime Lannister skill at arms is regarded as a major Lannister asset by their enemies. When Jaime loses his swordhand, he's compelled to keep up the pretense of being a Master Swordsman to maintain this authority.
• Spinning Silver: In Lithvas' feudal society, the nobility are war leaders. The Duke of Vysnia won his position by laying a successful siege against the previous Duke of Vysnia in the war that gave the present tsar's family the throne. The duke still personally drills his men daily, and other nobles send their sons to be fostered by him so that they'll become skilled warriors.
• Star Wars:
  • Gaining rank has a lot to do with asskicking. Both Luke Skywalker and Han Solo are given senior officer status in the Rebel Alliance just based on the fact that they are awesome. Somewhat justified in that a rebel insurgency doesn't have the luxury of OCS and a career advancement system, but still odd that any random smuggler can become an instant General. Han did have some officer training from the Imperial Navy before he started smuggling for a living though.
  • Star Wars Legends makes it pretty clear that the Sith have generally operated on this principle whenever they have had a structure involving enough of them to do so — the Rule of Two just compresses it, so that one proves one's strength and becomes the Master by killing one's own Master. The fact that this often ended badly for the Sith as a whole was the reason for adopting the Rule of Two and an accompanying shift to manipulation from the shadows rather than open conquest.
  • On a less malevolent scale, the Mandalorians also have a tradition of following their leaders based upon this trope. Whenever Mandalore dies (given the nature of their culture, this usually happens in battle), the strongest remaining warrior becomes the new Mandalore. This has been happening for over twenty thousand years. More specifically, the strongest warriors fight over Mandalore's helmet. If there's no helmet, there's no fighting, and no new Mandalore. Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords pointed out how ridiculous this is — Revan managed to deal the death blow to the Mandalorian people basically by just killing Mandalore and taking the helmet with him when he left. Later, they fixed that. Now either the current Mandalore chooses a successor (the person he or she feels is best fit to lead), or it's the guy who can get the most people the follow him. The second one happens if the Mandalore fails to name a successor before he dies.
  • Star Wars: Kenobi: One of the reasons why A'Yark is in charge of her Tusken clan (it's unusual for females to be warriors at all), as she is adept enough to take out dissenting opposition as shown when H'raak challenges her.
• The Stormlight Archive:
  • Anyone who has a Shardblade or Shardplate becomes a landed noble, regardless of birth. In fact it's suggested that having Shardblades or Plate is how the noble houses came about in the first place.
  • The flashbacks in Oathbringer show that this is how Dalinar and his brother Gavilar united the warring highprinces of their country: "With armies and knives in the dark." The Alethi have a strong Might Makes Right mentality in general, so showing up and conquering everyones lands was considered basically the best way to prove your worth as king. There was certainly more than a little diplomacy, particularly once they and their allies had already taken large parts of the kingdom, but force of arms was the primary justification.
    • Deconstructed in the second book (Words of Radiance) when Dalinar notes that one of the reasons his more peaceful methods are now failing is because of the way they united it in the first place. As soon as the other see weakness in the throne, they are justified in trying to take it by the same right.
    Dalinar: I receive, in Alethkar, only what I have demanded. In taking the throne by force, we implied — no we screamed — that strength is the right of rule. If Sadeas thinks he is stronger than I am, then it is his duty to try to take the throne from me. These are the fruits of my youth, Wit. It is why we need more than tyranny, even the benevolent kind, to transform this kingdom. That is what Nohadon was teaching. And that is what I've been missing all along.
• Super Powereds: Year 1 has Coach George explain his belief that young hot-shot Supers aren't likely to respect anyone who hasn't bested them in combat, so he challenges all of them to try to take him. The battle is stated to be embarrassingly short, ending with George standing amid unconscious bodies, many of whom have Super-Strength. His less direct colleague Coach Persephone demonstrates her authority by knocking out Nick without even touching him, explaining that she can emit pheromones that can do pretty much anything she wants to another person. In Year 2, George's successor starts the first class by explaining that he believes this philosophy as well and giving everyone 10 seconds to prepare before he will attack. His opening strike results in less than a dozen students remaining on their feet. He then proceeds to utterly curb-stomp each of those, while explaining the problems with their technique. This is despite the fact that he's retired at the start of the novel and is much older than George.
• Survivor Dogs uses and deconstructs the trope. In a group with a lot of unrelated dogs, this is how they choose the alpha. The pack leader is an idiotic, occasionally cowardly racist asshole who puts his needs above the entire pack, but because he's the best fighter they can't depose him. Luckily, he leaves anyway in the fifth book, and there's some justice to be found in that he becomes the Omega of the pack he joins.
• Sword of Truth: The Confessors' hierarchy is based on whose gift is the most powerful and requires the least recovery time after each use.
• Alanna of the Tortall Universe, who is the King's Champion and has the authority of the crown when the king or queen are not present. Not to mention she has not lost a battle since her training days. King Jonathan also counts, since he is a trained knight (and was in fact Alanna's knight-master while she was a squire).
• Vorkosigan Saga is a deconstruction. The endless strife and militarism of the ruling classes are ruining the planet Barrayar until they learn to get by with a minimum of asskicking. In a way it is a Coming of Age Story for an entire society.
• In Gav Thorpe's Warhammer 40,000 story "Renegades", when Gessert demands that the members of his company paint over their insignia, so they realize they are renegades and commit themselves, one says that he is no longer authorized by the Imperium as their captain. Gessert says that if he wants to fight him, go ahead.
• In Warrior Cats, BloodClan works this way. Scourge can kill a cat in one blow; he's leader. Bone is huge and also a powerful fighter; he's second in command. This is not, however, how the Clans proper operate. They prefer a combination of Four-Star Badass and Action Politician and a leader would probably face outright revolt if they tried to rule this way. Attempts at Klingon Promotion generally go over badly as well. A second-in-command will succeed a dead leader, but they have to wait their turn and trying to jump the gun will likely get them exiled or even killed.
• A belief in this principle is the undoing of the rabbits of Efrafa in Watership Down. When the biggest, toughest, most badass rabbit you've ever seen has stood alone against your elite warriors, and then rejects an offer of surrender because his chief rabbit has ordered him to stand... well, you don't want to stick around to meet the big guy's boss. Neatly subverted in that said Chief Rabbit is actually smaller, has a permanent leg injury, and is just generally less prone to asskicking than Bigwig. Not that most of the Efrafan Owslafa stuck around to find this out — especially considering there is a bigger rabbit but who is not in command.
• The Wheel of Time:
  • Among the Children of the Light, a victory in a duel conducted within the proper constraints results in the loser's rank and property being forfeited to the winner. Galad became Lord Captain Commander by using this law.
  • The hierarchy of the Aes Sedai Magical Society depends in large part on how strongly they can wield the One Power. Several characters, including Aes Sedai, lampshade the illogic of this method, and even the Aes Sedai think it impolite to acknowledge directly.
  • The Forsaken also structure their hierarchy this way; it's justified because of the fact that the Dark One likes pitting his servants against each other. The Forsaken hierarchy is pretty fluid as a result, since whoever is most successful at the moment has ascendance over the others, but the Dark One put his thumb on the scale at one point: Ishamael was always the overall leader both in his original body and as Moridin owing to being the setting's version of The Antichrist, and this trope was less about maintaining his position than it was enforcing his authority. Lanfear and Demandred were usually close behind, with Graendal, Sammael, and Semirhage generally filling out the top ranks.
• Invoked in Wings of Fire. The only way for a princess to become queen is to challenge and kill the current ruler in combat. They only get one try, since it's a fight to the death. Daughters, sisters, and nieces of the queen can do this. However, the RainWing tribe doesn't do this; instead, they compete for the throne in non-violent sport.
• The Witch of Knightcharm is set mostly within an evil Wizarding School. The four students with the best class rank there, known colloquially as 'the elites,' claim to have gotten their ranks by being the four toughest fighters in the school. Seeing as how the most effective way to move up in class rank is to win Wizard Duels against other students, they're likely telling the truth.
• The warrior tribes that inhabit the northern villages in Duncan M. Hamilton's The Wolf of the North trilogy. The First Warrior of each village is leader of the Village Council, and the warriors of each village are placed at the top of the heirarchy because the northern lands are still wild and savage, forcing those without fighting prowess to rely on the warriors for protection.

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