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Badass Bookworm / Video Games

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Ph.D. in ass-whooping
  • AMC Squad: Micky Crisp and Snowfall both qualify, being an engineer from Australia and an astronomer, respectively, and both of them are capable of taking on enemy forces by themselves using their wits and a boatload of firepower.
    • Micky Crisp has several majors in different fields of engineering, including electrical, mechanical, and mechatronic engineering, and managed to ace a project by himself while he was attending the University of Adelaide. He also managed to fight off a Cycloid invasion in his hometown and university with the help of a friend of his, an experimental suit of Powered Armor, and an arsenal of experimental weaponry, and even managed to defeat the leader of the invasion force in a showdown on the university campus, all before the Earth Defense Force could show up! His intelligence and combat capabilities have allowed him to join the AMC Squad when he contacted James Stanfield for a position, and his immediate assignment in Los Angeles has solidified his status as an AMC agent.
    • Snowfall is an astronomer, astronaut, and spacefarer who travels the cosmos in his personal space cruiser, the Snowflake. He's also just as capable in combat as Micky, coming equipped with a Personal Energy Shield and an arsenal of ballistic and electrical weaponry as his allies prepared to assault a Cycloid-controlled planet, and managed to get accepted into the AMC Squad for his deeds and abilities.
  • Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood: As part of a questline, Copernicus is given a Historical Hero Upgrade, and when you're tasked with defending him from waves of Borgia regime thugs sent to silence him, he can handle quite a few of them on his own.
  • Banjo-Kazooie: Mumbo Jumbo is an enigmatic shaman who is a genius at teaching special forms of magic. He is a master of casting many spells for helping Banjo and Kazooie. He's also capable of fighting back, putting his powerful skills in good use.
  • BlazBlue has Litchi Faye-Ling, a former scientist of Sector Seven whose seithr theories and experiments is widely acclaimed and praised by many, including even the likes of Relius Clover. Aside from this, she is also a competent fighter, and with the power of Lao Jiu siphoning the Boundary's power for her, she is able use a staff which she can manipulate with her mind, as well as magical-based attacks.
  • Bookworm Adventures: Extremely literal video game example: Lex (a worm) defeats a variety of monsters and creatures of legend, despite the fact that he is lacking not only weapons but limbs. And he is also using the power of words.
  • BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm: Eddie, the fourth party member, is practically the ideal definition. He's quiet, mild-mannered, works in a library, and uses his research skills to find information about enemies... yet he also jumps at the chance to go adventuring, and turns out to be the hardest-hitting powerhouse on the team, with a proficiency for wielding large axes and war hammers.
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops: Jason Hudson, the secondary protagonist; in addition to being a double-major in psychology and political science prior to his service, he is described as an excellent tactician with genius-level IQ.
  • Chrono Trigger's Lucca. She built a robot and a teleporter while living in a quasi-medieval time period, and the Time Key you use through most of the game. Her techo-geekness is established by her house, strewn as it is with books and cabling. She later repairs a robot 1,500 years ahead of her time. She also wields pistols and fire magic.
  • Chzo Mythos: Trilby studied hard at engineering and mechanics before turning to the life of a Gentleman Thief. What truly makes him a badass is that he used his skills to face the forces of evil not once, not twice... but THREE TIMES! Having also become a Man In Black he becomes the stuff of legend.
  • Cultist Simulator: This is one of the benefits of meddling with eldritch lore (if it doesn't kill you or drive you mad). The player is quite likely to end up with explicitly superhuman intellect, creativity, and either strength or dexterity while on the path to becoming a full-blown immortal Humanoid Abomination.
  • Dark Souls: Mages in general. Of the specific NPCs are Big Hat Logan and his apprentice, Griggs.
  • Dead Space: Isaac Clarke is the one and only to survive the events of the game. His weapons are MINING TOOLS, he is just a space engineer, and still manages to cut down an army of space zombies.
  • Deus Ex: Human Revolution: Pre-augmentation, Adam Jensen was a security specialist with SWAT training and an associate degree in Criminal Justice. Post-augmentation, he picked up an interest in clock-making and his apartment is strewn with books on the subject, as well as various others on history, psychology, criminal law and cybernetics. He is also a largely-robotic infiltration expert who can kill you quickly, quietly and in thirty different ways.
  • Devil May Cry
    • The Special Edition of Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening reveals that Vergil (Dante's Evil Twin) is a bookworm who frequently studies new ways of finding power and orchestrates a plan to open the Demon World. Vergil is also extremely tactical in combat stringing with precision, in contrast, to the "hack away with the BFS until it stops moving" style of his younger brother. Devil May Cry 5 doubles down on this showing Vergil liked to read poetry from a young age.
    • Arkham the secondary Big Bad of Devil May Cry 3 is also this being a supernatural scholar, help Arkham even carry a book around with him for most of the game. Arkham also has demonic powers to match his cunning as at one point he defeats Dante, Vergil and his daughter Lady through simple Victory by Endurance as the aforementioned trio were worn out by all the fighting.
    • Agnus from Devil May Cry 4 the chief technology researcher and alchemist for Order of The Sword, help create all the Cool Sword(s) The Hero Nero and Holy Knight use as well as constructing the Hell Gates which serves as portals to the demon world. Unfortunately Angus is also a deadbeat dad who works for a Corrupt Church bent on world domination, lampshaded by Dante who states Angus "Should've done his homework" when it came to human morality and goodness before shooting him in the head.
    • Angus's daughter Nico from Devil May Cry 5 is just as smart as her dad but thankfully is a good person provide Artificial Limbs aka "Devil Breaker" for Nero when his father pays a visit and boosting his strength and power in combat. Nico also documents everything from all the enemies, weapons and even the heroes.
    • Also from Devil May Cry 5, there's V who quotes poetry and makes up for his complete lack of strength by smartly using Summon Magic and striking when the enemy is at their weakest. This is all justifed with V as he's actually the human Soul Jar of Vergil posessing all his intellegnece as well his shunned humanity.
  • Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice: Raspberyl fights you with a book (and has access to fire spells).
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition: Varric Tethras (and to a lesser extent in Dragon Age II) is a somewhat rare example of an asskicking author. He's essentially the In-Universe equivalent of Stephen King if the popularity of his novels and serials are any indication. He's also a wicked shot with Bianca, his Repeating Crossbow, and holds his own quite well as a frontline agent of the Inquisition and party member.
  • Dragon Quest:
    • Dragon Quest II: Official art◊ depicts the Princess of Moonbrooke as a hard-working student. And even though she isn't physically imposing, she is a powerful mage.
    • Dragon Quest VII: Quite a few NPC allies and helpers qualify, but none as much as Saide. He filled a house with books on other cities and traveling, and is one damn good brawler.
    • Dragon Quest XI: When the group is encamped, Hendrik, the party's Lightning Bruiser, can sometimes be found reading by the fire. He's also fond of less high-brow literature as well.
  • Dungeon Keeper 2: The Dark Angels are formidable Magic Knights and the most advanced units in the game, and will get very grumpy if your evil lair doesn't include a Magical Library where they can relax during downtime.
  • Dwarf Fortress: In older versions, order your bookkeeper to take the most accurate inventory of your stocks possible. He, a weak, unassuming social dwarf, will proceed to lock himself in his study, and work silently for roughly a season. Eventually, he will re-emerge, and after all those hours of updating the records, will have acquired the character notes 'Ultra-Mighty', 'Extremely Agile', and 'Unbelievably Tough'.
  • EarthBound (1994): Jeff Andonuts. Unusual for an RPG in that he's also a Badass Normal; while he can't use Psychic Powers, he can make bazookas out of spare parts.
  • EarthBound Beginnings: Lloyd, although story-wise, he had to Take a Level in Badass first.
  • Elden Ring: Gideon Ofnir spends most of the game reading in his study and letting his minions go out and do dirty work for him, but he is not weak, he's an endgame boss, and although weaker than the ones before and after him (Maliketh and Godfrey), he's still fully capable of destroying your health bar with multiple high-level spells if you don't stunlock him first.
  • The Elder Scrolls
    • The Chronicler of the Blades keeps a history of the Blades, often in code in case it falls into the wrong hands. They're also known for helping to plan operations and work mostly behind the scenes. The Chronicler has usually gone through the same training as the other Blades, vouching for their badassery.
    • Given that the series treats Magic as Mental, many of Tamriel's most powerful mages and wizards are also some of the most well-learned people around. From the Altmeri mage-lords, to the Telvanni wizards, to the Psijic Order, to the high ranking members of the various Wizarding School style institutions throughout Tamriel, many can fry a powerful foe with high level spells then turn around and give you a detailed explanation on their particular area(s) of interest/study.
    • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:
      • Esbern was the Chronicler of the Blades before the group was nearly wiped out and the survivors forced underground by the Thalmor. He's spent a long time studying the prophecies of Alduin and the Dragonborn. When the Dragonborn finds him to bring him to meet Delphine, he first spends several minutes packing up what he deems his most essential books. Despite his age (the Thalmor's dossier on him says that he is 70), he's still quite badass in combat, using fire spells and summoning Atronachs.
      • Urag gro-Shub, Librarian of the College of Winterhold. If the unusual name wasn't enough of a clue, Urag is an Orc. Yes, the big, normally brutish and often rather unintelligent green-skinned type. Urag, however, is a competent mage and will not hesitate to punish anyone who would damage the meticulously-organized and painstakingly-collected contents of his Arcanaeum. He is stern, but otherwise entirely reasonable. He displays some additional Hidden Depths in that he's also one of the few people capable of translating Arch-Mage Shalidor's writings and the Ancient Falmer tomes.
      Urag gro-Shub: "You are now in the Arcanaeum, of which I am in charge. It might as well be my own little plane of Oblivion. Disrupt my Arcanaeum, and I will have you torn apart by angry Atronachs. Now, do you require assistance?"
      • The Dragonborn DLC adds Seekers, a Cthulhumanoid form of lesser Daedra in service to Hermaeus Mora, the Daedric Prince of Knowledge. In Apocrypha, Mora's Daedric realm, Seekers can typically found reading if there aren't any intruders in Apocrypha for them to attack. When they do attack, they are formidable foes who use powerful draining ranged magic attacks that home-in on their targets.
      • Dragonborn also has Master Neloth, a Mage-Lord of the Dunmeri Great House Telvanni (who previously appeared in Morrowind). He's a very old, very powerful, and a very well-studied Mage-Lord. He's capable of casting high-level, powerful spells such as Incinerate, Thunderbolt, and Summon Storm Atronach, as well as buffs such as Ebonyflesh. When you encounter the dragon Krosulhah that Miraak sends after you, Neloth is present, and at high levels, he has a good chance of being able to incapacitate the dragon without help.
  • Eternal Darkness
    • Alexandra Roivas is a student in abstract mathematics and number theory.
    • Her grandfather was a clinical psychologist who, in the chapter you play him, gets two of the most awesome guns in the game (a sawed-off shotgun that can be used at close range to remove one arm and two heads from 9-foot-tall brutes, and an elephant gun that knocks him over when he fires it). Other people were Edwin Lindsay (Think Indiana Jones, with a beard), a 14th-century monk, Roberto (an architect during the Renaissance), and a WWI journalist who puts all that spare ammo lying around to good use. Everyone gets to dismember zombies and other monsters.
  • Caira of Evolve. She has multiple master's degrees, was the youngest team leader of Catalog, and wields a napalm grenade launcher against giant flesh eating monsters. And then once she kills them, she cuts them open and studies them.
    • Taken a step further with Kala. Mentioned as being much smarter than Caira, she has a doctorate in Applied Quantum Molecular Biology, won several accolades in the same field, and fights monsters as a member of The Crew.
  • Briar Rose in The Lost Chapters expansion of Fable. Spends a lot of her time shuttling back to the Heroes' Guild to research eldritch incantations and ancient prophecies, but is fully capable of throwing down on fell abominations when necessary.
  • In Fallout, your character's Intelligence determines how many skill points you get to allocate, including combat skills, so a character with high Intelligence is likely to be very competent at many different skills and also capable with all kinds of weapons. A perk in the third game that gives your character cybernetic combat implants requires them to be highly skilled as both a cybernetic technician and as a medical doctor.
  • Fallout: New Vegas
    • The Courier can be this.
    • Arcade Gannon. Speaks fluent Latin? Check. Quotes Shakespeare? Check. Reads books about socioeconomics for fun? Check. Owns Ancestral Armor and can take down a Deathclaw with a pistol? Check.
    • Veronica is skilled with all manner of tech and is good at punching people.
    • Father Elijah, the Big Bad of the Dead Money DLC, braved the wasteland, the Divide, the Big Empty, and the Sierra Madre with his trusty Gauss Rifle and various jury-rigged technology, despite being in his seventies. He's also a genius; he managed to modify various Lightning Guns to be even more deadly, outsmarted all the assassins sent after him, hacked the Think Tank's robots (the ones he didn't kill, anyway), and outsmarted the Think Tank themselves, the "gods of the Big Empty" according to Ulysses.
  • Shantotto from the MMO Final Fantasy XI easily qualifies. She's short, a professor, and can cast ancient magic spells without using what some would call the "magic casting pose."
  • Edgar Roni Figaro from Final Fantasy VI is an engineer who outfitted the entire Figaro Castle with the ultimate defense — a submerge mode! He also fights with his engineering tools, including a drill, a bolt gun, and a CHAINSAW. And he's the king.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics: the Calculator does stuff with math. Stuff like injuring every enemy on the screen. At once. Since the game lets you change classes, every one of your characters can learn to be a bookworm. Combine this with all the other classes... Badassery out the behind.
    • An evil variant is Balk, a disgruntled machinist who aids the Corrupt Church in their proletarian killing spree. He always comes packing some horrible magic-shooting gun, and likes to snipe at you from an advantageous position. If you want a warrior's job done right, it sometimes takes a scientist.
    • Nu Mou Scholars in Final Fantasy Tactics A2 use books as their weapons of choice. Seriously, no one expect a short and fragile race like the Nu Mou to be physically strong since they specialize in magic, but Scholars can deal a good amount of physical damage and use spells that hits everyone by just reading from the book. Human Seers also uses books for weapons and their Magick Frenzy ability lets them hit enemies with spells AND the book.
    • Not only can Calculators nuke every enemy on the screen with high-level spells, they do it for no MP cost! If properly used, Calculators are an even bigger Game-Breaker than the infamously broken optional character Orlandeau.
  • Several of the magic users in Fire Emblem, especially if they're of the Mage/Sage, Cleric/Priest/Bishop or the Shaman/Druid classes. More specific examples are:
  • Keats in Folklore goes from mild-mannered skeptical Intrepid Reporter to a destroyer of souls with seemingly little convincing.
  • Grace Nakimura from the Gabriel Knight series, who is well versed in tai chi and not about to let herself be a Damsel in Distress.
  • Edmund from Gaia Online got his start as a Mad Scientist. Then he became a superhero. Then he fought off an Ax-Crazy vampire hitman... multiple times... These days, he's supposedly retired. Supposedly.
  • Genshin Impact: Alhaitham is officially the Scribe for the Akademiya, and vastly prefers to read over dealing witn people. He is also a very capable fighter. Lisa, the Knights of Favonious' librarian, would also be one if she really wanted to be.
    • Like the above mentioned, given that Sumeru is the nation of wisdom, anyone in the Akademiya with a Vision could easily qualify; even Layla.
  • Ghostbusters: The Video Game upgrades Winston to the badass bookworm status of his colleagues, stating that he's just received his doctorate.
  • In Golden Sun games, Mercury Adepts are prone to this. To date, we have:
  • Roberto from Fobia: St. Dinfna Hotel is a journalist and Intrepid Reporter investigating the titular hotel, only to realize the place to be infested with giant monsters. But then he finds the armory, and he's effortlessly slaying undead and various monsters easily.
  • Altair from Granblue Fantasy is a renowned tactician who has a fondness for a variety of books from world lore to nostalgic children books.
  • Barok van Zieks of The Great Ace Attorney is a prosecutor by profession, but years of Prestige Peril have turned him into an impressive combatant as well, as Ryunosuke is shocked to learn when learns van Zieks was attacked by assassins and rushes to find him... completely unharmed and mildly annoyed such a routine occurance was sensationalized in the paper. And while it was Dummied Out, alternate background art for his office shows that his infamous axe kicks would break the prosecutor's desk in half if he didn't moderate his strength.
  • Guild Wars 2: While the Durmand Priory primarily focuses on the research and reclamation of history, science, magic and technology; they are still expected to be competent, if not exceptionally skilled, fighters, if for no other reason than to combat the dangers associated with such field work. For this reason, their ranks include Guardians, Warriors and even Thieves, in addition to the other "scholar" professions.
  • The Half-Life series revolves around an interdimensional war between alien empires that spills over to an alien invasion and conquest of Earth, in which the human fight against the alien invaders is almost entirely in the hand of theoretical physicists.
    • Most famous the main protagonist Dr. Gordon Freeman (pictured above), who only gets to show off his scientific expertise by performing the tasks of a lowly lab technician, but according to the manual, he just returned to America from his last university job in Europe and got his new employment in probably one of the world's biggest and most secret research facilities. On the badass side, he kills hundreds of aliens and monsters as well as a major swath through the traitorous resident HECU army in the span of three days and travels to an alien dimension to kill an Eldritch Abomination with machine guns, laser rifles, and rocket launchers.
    • And then there is also the staff at the Lambda Complex, who have been doing expeditions into the hostile alien dimension for quite some time.
    • In Half-Life 2, the human resistance against the alien occupation is apparently founded and led by the leader of Gordon's old team, Dr. Eli Vance. The rest of the inner circle includes Dr. Kleiner, Dr. Mossman, and Dr. Magnusson. While none of them are great fighters, they still have been leading the fight against an alien empire for well over a decade.
    • Alyx Vance, the daughter of Dr. Eli Vance, seems to be the resistance's main muscle and top infiltrator. Since there haven't been any universities on earth since she was a little girl, she does not have a degree, but she's still one of the world's experts in dimensional travel and teleportation. And also an expert electrical engineer.
    • And while certainly not a badass in any sense, even the human puppet governor of Earth, Dr. Wallace Breen, the former director of the Black Mesa Research Facility, is a physicist.
    • Also, Gina Cross and Colette Green from the Half-Life: Decay spinoff.
  • In Heroes of Might and Magic V Tribes of the East, vampire lord Giovanni dismisses Arantir as a humble bookworm, then attempts to backstab him... and Arantir easily eradicates him. Arantir points out that there is great power to be found in books, especially magical ones.
  • Sasuke from Ikemen Sengoku, a nerdy astrophysics graduate student who got sent back 500 years in time to Sengoku-era Japan by the wormhole he was researching and underwent four years of training under Kenshin Uesugi to become an expert ninja capable of sneaking into the enemy's castle undetected and defeating seven men all by himself.
  • In I Miss the Sunrise, every single character you meet has lived a very long time, and most of them are scientists. As a result, almost all of the playable characters are this.
  • The heroes of I. M. Meen. Enough to fight demons bare-handed, punching out Cthulu.
  • The first six members of Organization XIII have this as part of their backstory (or so we assume); Six brilliant apprentices of a wise and loved king... who manage to release The Heartless on the worlds and become the most powerful Nobodies around. Zexion, who was one of the original 6 Organization XIII members, fits this trope. His weapon? A book.
  • Mical/Disciple and Bao-Dur from Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. Mical is a historian and spy trying to salvage Jedi history and lore for the Republic. You meet him doing a little "light" reading in the bombed-out, nasty-critter-infested ruins of the Dantooine Enclave. His starting class is Soldier (VERY tough, plenty of combat feats), but you cross-class him to a Consular (MASSIVE amounts of Force whoop-ass). Bao-Dur is a shy, soft-spoken engineer who came up with such a nasty weapon of mass destruction (the Mass Shadow Generator) that even the Mandalorians were horrified when they saw it in action. He's also no stranger to more...personal combat, either. It's what cost him his left arm. Badass he is, he built his own artificial one. You can cross class him as a Guardian (mostly because his mechanical arm prevents him from wearing robes, thus limiting his ability to use Force powers anyway).
  • Shad, from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, could be a contender for this trope. He's a textbook nerd, with glasses and argyle socks and a freakishly large bow tie, who natters on extensively about the ancient race of bird-people called the Oocca. He's also tolerably muscular, uses an ornamental dagger as a bookmark, and forms a Resistance with the characters Auru, Ashei, and Rusl — all of whom are easily defined as being badass. Plus the ancient Hyrulean BAZOOKA. It stands to reason that Shad wouldn't be part of that little collective if he couldn't hold his own.
    • Farore who appears in Oracle Of Ages seems harmless little wallflower till you realize she's mortal recantation of The Goddess Of Courage. In Minish Cap she can even boost Link's attack and defense.
    • In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, reading Zelda's diary and seeing her in flashbacks shows her as very bookish and driven in her goals to protect Hyrule. But this Zelda is also very emotionally vulnerable as well as prone to anger and sadness making her probably the most human Zelda to date.
    • We get to see this version of Zelda in action in the spin-off Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and she can easily keep up with Link and the other heroes by creatively using the Sheika slate runes in battle. Then when she finally unlocks her holy power she disables all four Blight Ganons at once and she gains a new moveset that is all about blasting enemies with light-empowered arrows.
  • Barry, the Player Character from Magium, has spent years nerding out about magic (since he desires to become a mage), and it shows more often than not. How badass he is depending on the player's choices and stat distribution.
  • Marc Hawk in Mahjongg Artifacts, an archaeologist who focuses on ancient China and studies martial arts in his spare time. The in-game comic depicts him as well-versed in old legends yet also perfectly capable of beating up some mooks who let themselves into his hotel room later on. Not to mention that near the end of the game he takes on Eldritch Abominations from Atlantis and escapes unscathed.
  • In Mass Effect, due to the highly advanced technology of the setting, most people are either this or a Genius Bruiser. Any class reliant upon tech attacks is usually this, as are a few biotics.
    • Liara T'Soni is a rather unassuming archaeologist, until you find out she can kill you with her mind. If the player isn't an Adept, she's the most powerful biotic in the game. And that's only in the first game... Made especially awesome when she takes on the Shadow Broker. After noticing what his extremely rare species was and getting him angry enough to overreact, she notices the flaw in his shields and uses her biotics to take him out.
    • Tali'Zorah nar Rayya: don't let that 'all tech' rating fool you, she can pack a mean shotgun and gets the strongest shields in the game by default, in addition to her ability to kill you with her toolkit. Quarians in general tend to fit the trope. Their entire life and culture revolves around spaceships and technology, and their environmental suits make them look like skinny engineering nerds. But don't let that fool you.
    • Professor Mordin Solus. Motor Mouth doctor. Ran clinic during plague, threat to mercenaries. Came to start trouble. Killed them, left bodies on display. Formerly part of Special Tasks Group. (inhale) Never saw him coming. Salarians in general fit trope. First impressions awkward, but Salarian ingenuity, intelligence, and logic will hold the line.
    • To a degree, Kaidan Alenko. He's a techie with medical training who initially appears to simply be a Nice Guy. However, as you learn later, he's also an incredibly powerful biotic (for a human) who (accidentally) killed one of his instructors in biotic training who threatened the girl he liked and then Kaidan after Kaidan stood up for her.
    • Sentinel Shepard, having learnt to combine biotic abilities and engineering on the battlefield to devestating effect, in addition to their N7 special forces training. How badass is Sentinel Shepard? It's possible to complete the game on Insanity without firing a single shot. Shepard doesn't need guns. Engineer Shepard also qualifies, even getting a bonus to research due to their intelligence.
    • Kasumi Goto is a master thief turned Cerberus affiliate/asset, however briefly. Once she's been recruited, paying a visit to the observation deck she's claimed as her personal quarters reveals that she enjoys various forms of artistic expression, literature included. Especially noteworthy since this is a future where all those books would be available electronically through the extranet for a much lower cost, except she simply enjoys holding an actual book while reading. Besides, being a master thief probably helps circumvent the cost issue. She also writes haiku. About Jacob's dreamy abs.
  • Medal of Honor: Lt. Jimmy Patterson, the Player Character, is not only a badass One-Man Army Do-Anything Soldier but also attended the University of Michigan and got straight As in multiple fields from calculus and engineering to medieval poetry. His training as an aeronautical engineer comes into play twice during the game's sabotage missions. If not for his subpar German (got a C-) then he would be The Ace.
  • Solid Snake of the Metal Gear games has a genius-level IQ, proficiency in six different languages, near-complete mastery of military science, and an impressive knowledge of biology, genetics, philosophy, firearms and foreign popular culture. He is also verbatim stated to be the greatest soldier to have ever lived. His awesome moments from Metal Gear Solid alone (one game) include destroying an M1 Abrams with only anti-personnel grenades; defeating a world-class Kurdish Cold Sniper in a Sniper Duel; withstanding Mind Rape from the world's most powerful psychic; winning against a Cyber Ninja in hand-to-hand combat; taking down a 100ft-tall nuclear Humongous Mecha; surviving a fight against a giant of a man wielding a gatling cannon that is normally mounted on fighter jets; and surviving a virus that was designed specifically to target and kill him.
  • Nightwolf from Mortal Kombat, before Hell broke loose in MK3, was a historian whose knowledge of both shamanism and Native American legends as well as his physical strength was what made him qualified to become one of the Earth Warriors. In the cartoon, he's also a computer genius on top of a fighter and a walking myth encyclopaedia. In the original arcade Mortal Kombat 3, as Nightwolf, you could actually throw your opponent, run after him, and throw him before he had a chance to recover. Also, in the newer games, he tends to have easy combos that take 25% of your life bar.
  • Wizards in Nexus Clash are frail, otherworldly scholars who focus on delving into the secrets of the planes to unlock arcane knowledge. Specifically, knowledge of volatile chemistry, ballistics and gunsmithing.
  • The character Cyrus in Octopath Traveler is a scholar who becomes giddy when he is offered the chance to study a rare book and uses his wits and keen senses to solve mysteries, but in combat, he happens to be a formidable wizard with a collection of devastating elemental attacks.
  • Daniel Dankovski from Pathologic is a world-famous pathophysiologist, but he is also an excellent sniper and sharpshooter, and he is very strong at knife- and fist- fight.
  • Tycho Brahe from Penny Arcade's "On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness". Tycho is a scholar who comes from a long family tradition of seeking to end the world and he constantly has his nose in a book. He will throw his book into the air long enough to frag someone with a Tommy Gun, catch the book and continue reading though. His special attack includes throwing the book at foes and later on he 'upgrades' his weapon by mounting the book on it.
  • Persona 3: Multiple:
  • A few examples from the Phantasy Star series:
    • Hugh from the second installment is seemingly just some random biologist who can use status debuffs, nothing especially useful, until he gains a surprisingly accurate multi-target insta-kill spell. That and the fact he can use a mace!
    • Hahn from the fourth game also does this but can combine it with something else to cast Holocaust (you have to be badass to get away with that level of tactlessness).
  • The Fighting Game Phantom Breaker has Kurisu Makise as a playable guest character. Among a cast of characters who can use magic and have special powers, Kurisu is the only normal human, however, aside of fighting purely via kicks, she's a Gadgeteer Genius who can use weapons that she takes out of nowhere, based on the future gadgets from her home game.
    • Kurisu later returns in Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds, a retro styled Beat 'em Up and spin-off to Phantom Breaker, as a playable character via DLC. Later, The game adds Frau Kojirou as a playable character, also via DLC. In her home game, Frau was a brilliant programmer, and it shows, as her fighting style involves using remote-controlled small robots as weapons, and her Phantom Break has her summoning a giant mecha that wipes out everything in Frau's lane.
  • Lucian of the Elite Four in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl mentions that he just finished a book when you arrived and has the book depicted in his entering battle animation in Platinum. He's the last of the Elite Four, a devastating Psychic-type specialist. If you talk to him after beating him, he mentions he's going to go back to reading in order to prepare for his next battle. Awesome. You can run into him at the Canalave Library once after having entered the Hall of Fame your first time.
    • On a similar note, Shauntal, the Elite Four's Ghost type specialist in Pokémon Black and White. She's a lot like Lucian, except that she writes books as well as reading them.
    • Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire: Rustboro Gym Leader Roxanne is also depicted as one, especially in the manga — where she forces all hopefuls into taking a written exam for the right to challenge her. It's pretty verbose on top of that, meaning that with one exception, everyone who got to fight her had some serious language comprehension skills.
    • Cyrus from Team Galactic. Scientist, engineer, roboticist, strongest Pokemon trainer in the team and one of the strongest trainers in all Sinnoh, and the man who captured the embodiments of Willpower, Emotion, Knowledge, Space, and Time.
    • Uxie and Azelf could be this in Pokémon form. They're small, Psychic-type pixies, so it seems like they would specialize in the Special end of the spectrum, which is partially true; Azelf's Special Attack is very high. However, its physical Attack stat is just as high. Uxie's got better defense and special defense stats, but it being the Knowledge Pokémon qualifies it as this trope. Mesprit is in-between.
    • From the same game, Cynthia. A LOT more emphasis is put on the badass part, since she's pretty much the only champion to have a competively balanced team, but she's very interested in mythology and history. Unless you interpret that as a lie and believe she's researching it to stop Cyrus.
  • Quintessential British Gentleman Professor Layton is one of these, even though the games consist mostly of solving puzzles. One particular example of this appears in the second game, in which one cutscene shows that Layton is quite proficient with a sword.
    • In the prequels, we have Emmy Altava, who can almost keep up with the professor in terms of puzzle solving ability and can beat up goons far larger than her.
  • Alex Mercer from [PROTOTYPE]. Before the events of the game, he had already earned a PhD in genetic engineering by age 29, and it's heavily implied that his work was leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else's. Then he's infected with The Virus and offensive abilities so great that he can slice a tank in half (and then pick up those halves and smash helicopters out of the sky with them) and decimate entire bases single-handedly, as well as defensive abilities that enable him to survive point-blank tank fire and survive a direct hit to the face with a nuke. Oh, and he also gains all of the knowledge and memories of anyone he consumes — yes, that includes other geniuses, as well as military personnel whose expertise lies in operating tanks, choppers, etc.
  • Arthur Morgan, from Red Dead Redemption II, is an intelligent, philosophical, and thoughtful man. Compared to his friend (and protag of the first game) John Marston, who is literate but still quite Book Dumb, Arthur keeps a journal in which he articulates his thoughts and feelings remarkably well (a particularly impressive accomplishment, given that he didn't learn to read until he was in his teens), as well as express his skills as a talented artist with many sketches of the things he sees in his travels.
  • Resident Evil:
    • Rebecca Chambers. While she's a physically weak young woman, she is still an extremely gifted Combat Medic, which is especially shown in Resident Evil 0 where she can mix herbs and make healing items, unlike her partner Billy Cohen, who's solely combat oriented. Outside of chemistry, Rebecca is shown to be a crack shot and she even defeats a Tyrant before Chris, Jill and Barry even see their first zombie. Unfortunately, by the time Resident Evil rolls around, Rebecca's resourcefulness is not apparent and she's little more than a Damsel in Distress.
      • This is due in part to Resident Evil 0 coming chronologically before Resident Evil, but being developed after that game and before they really developed her character. In addition, 0 doesn't just come before 1, but it happens immediately before 1, with the ending scene showing how Rebecca arrived at the Spencer Mansion. Her characterization in 1 can easily be explained by the sheer exhaustion of surviving an entire Resident Evil game and being thrust directly into the next with no time to sleep or eat.
    • Jill Valentine is more or less this. She's shown to be bookish in the first Resident Evil, and in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, she defeats the Titular villain with skill, strategy and weaponry, as opposed to her partner Chris's usual method of brute force. This is partly why her change in Resident Evil 5 is so drastic, as it abandons the thoughtful approach Jill held in the other games in favor of an mind-controlled super assassin.
    • Leon S. Kennedy is described by Ada Wong in Resident Evil 4's Ada's Reports as such: "Practically a genius, he has smarts and knows how to use them." Furthermore, he's shown in the "Leon vs. Chris" cutscene in Resident Evil 6 as being able to fight Chris Redfield himself to a stalemate.
    • Claire Redfield (Leon’s partner and Chris’s sister) prior to RE2 attended university and is very brainy. Claire was also trained in combat by her brother, can kill monsters with a handgun, survived a Zombie Apocalypse and at one point goes One-Woman Army on Umbrella’s Paris base, avoiding point-blank helicopter turret fire.
    • A villainous example in Albert Wesker, a practised biotech researcher for several pharmaceutical companies with years of experience. He also took a Super Serum which gave him Super-Strength, Super-Speed and Nigh-Invulnerability, meaning that not only is Wesker smarter than the heroes, he’s 10 times stronger than them, being a Lightning Bruiser as well as an Evil Genius.
  • Protagonist Giacomo from Rise of Legends is this. Who else would lead a Roaring Rampage of Revenge that culminates in him destroying Sufficiently Advanced Aliens who claim to be gods?
  • Lexicus Runewright in RuneScape. Looks like a harmless librarian before he starts summoning books that shoots pages at you, plus multiple exploding books that could easily tear you to shreds if you don't have the sense to run.
  • John Vattic from Second Sight, a skinny, awkward-looking academic... that also happens to be one of the most powerful psychics in the game. Plus, as seen in the first level of the game, he can kill people with his bare hands.
  • Dr. Kruglov from S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. You can meet him in the Wild Territory with a small science team investigating the phenomenon of the Zone, besieged by a team of heavily-armed mercenaries trying to get the data he's keeping from them. If the player intervenes then he becomes the subject of the most bearable Escort Mission in video game history: while he claims to be a "third rate fighter", he is competent in a firefight and a good shot with any decent assault rifle, scoring headshots often. Combined with his heavy-duty armour, it is likely Kruglov will survive the scenario and become the more competent replacement for Dr. Semenov in the Ecologist missions — while Semenov tries to abandon you during a bad blowout, Kruglov will follow you in, stubbornly refusing to leave your side. If the player does not intervene, Kruglov's team are picked off one by one until only he is left, at which point Wolfhound the merc leader will contact him delivering a final ultimatum for the data; Kruglov ignores him and Wolfhound basically gives up and says "I've had enough, looks like this is going to get ugly", to which Kruglov simply replies "As you wish". If the mercs kill Kruglov, you find out that his last act before the mercs got him was destroying the data on his PDA, effectively completely wasting their time. What a badass.
  • Both Arcturus and Valerian Mengsk of StarCraft are both trained in swordsmanship and the use of a rifle as well as the former being a Magnificent Bastard and the latter being an Adventurer Archaeologist.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • Tails. He is a freaking genius, even making a robotic suit that rivals Eggman's, while at the same time being fairly fast, having the ability to fly, and, in some games, being able to take out Eggman by himself. Not through intelligence, though. No, through beating the ever loving crap out of him! In Sonic Adventure, he has to go and beat Eggman to a missile then take on one of Eggman's mechs by himself, saving the city SINGLE HANDEDLY.
    • Eggman himself, being a mad scientist and the series' Big Bad. The guy single-handedly built his empire, which is made up of armies of Killer Robots, sky and space fleets, badass mechs, and even Kill Sats. Sonic and his friends are the only things standing between him and world conquest.
  • Super Robot Wars has Shu Shirakawa, pilot of the Granzon. He has multiple P.H.D.'s at age 21, a strong grasp on alchemy, and improved on technology granted by Guest, which involves weaponized black holes. Also, he and Jade Curtiss above have the same seiyuu.
  • Probably one of the earliest FPS examples is The Hacker from System Shock, where he manages to survive in the space station filled to the brim with mutants and cyborgs controlled by the Megalomaniac AI. That Military-Grade Neural Interface probably helped, too.
  • Tales of the Abyss has Colonel Badass Jade Curtiss. He discovered/invented fomicry, a branch of science, by himself before he even turned ten; he is the personal confidant and right-hand-man to Emperor Peony, with some people speculating that Jade is really running things through his emperor; he is well versed in several scientific subjects, including medicine; he figures out the game's big plot twist almost instantly, if you pay attention near the beginning of the game; he is, excepting seventh fonists, the most powerful fonist in the world; by the end of the game he's even shrugged off the effects of a Fon Slot Seal, a rare and dangerous weapon akin to a nuke in-universe.
  • In Tales of Symphonia, Genis is small, he's smart and carries a toy kendama as a weapon. He also has the most dangerous spells at his disposal. His sister also has her moments.
  • In Tales of Vesperia Rita Mordio qualifies as well, she is a dedicated blastia researcher not older than 15 who can also burn their enemies to a crisp.
    • She's quite aggressive, too.
  • The Heavy Weapons Guy in Team Fortress 2 can mow down the entire team with a gun large enough to be mounted on a vehicle (but which he happily carries in his own two hands). What's his PhD in? Russian Literature.
  • Lara Croft. She's been plundering ancient tombs and archeological sites, kicking ass, defeating ancient evils and looking damn fine while doing it since 1996.
    • Especially in the 2013 reboot, where she begins as an adorable bookworm. Background documents you find even state that Sam has to drag her away from her books to get her to go out clubbing, and she's more interested in exploring libraries and historical sites than hitting the local hot spots. By the end of the game she's also a Broken Bird One Woman Army capable of mowing down Mooks and undead samurai warriors by the hundreds.
      • But in the same game Lara can be considered a prom queen compared to the much nerdier and spectacled Alex Weiss, who's just suspenders and a bow tie away from being a stereotypical geek. Even the socially inept Lara finds poor Alex "awkward" at times. But despite all of this, Alex still proves his worth on the ship. He's an excellent hacker and guides Lara into establishing communications off the island. Even in a scrap, he's no slouch; he mows down many cultists with a sub-machine gun and is the only survivor, aside from Lara and Roth, to wield dual pistols. Towards the end, he is the one who gets the tools to repair the ship so the remaining survivors can get off the island. It comes at cost of his life, as he blows himself up along with the ship allowing Lara to escape, but not before scoring a kiss from her.
    Alex "How often does a guy like me get to be a hero? The others are counting on us. Go! Now!".
  • Patchouli Knowledge from the Touhou series is a pretty good example of the "magician" variety: she closets herself in (what amounts to) her own private library virtually all the time — researching new and innovative ways to produce More Dakka. And she's not afraid to use them! Though the badassness level is sometimes slightly hurt by the fact that her frail health and asthma, due to lack of exercise and open air, can impede her ability to recite the incantations or endure protracted battles. Not that most people live to see the point where this matters.
    • Also Marisa Kirisame, who got to be a magician in a setting where most true magicians have an inherent gift solely by studying really hard... and has enough firepower in her hands to turn a country into a crater. And very little moral trouble with using it, too.
    • Nitori Kawashiro. She goes by with the nickname "Super Youkai Warhead", and arms herself with an Extending Arm plus and Invisibility Module she built herself, despite the fact that the general level of technology in Gensokyo being equivalent to the Sengoku Jidai era. Or even earlier.
  • In Tropico, it's possible for the Intellectuals faction to take up arms and attempt to overthrow your regime just as any other faction. You can also become this if you pick "War Hero" or "Professor" as your background and "Scholarly" or "Athletic" as your respective trait.
  • Uncharted:
  • Undertale: Sans. Despite being such a Lazy Bum, is implied to have been of scientific background. There's a book on quantum physics in his house, and some weird machine that he's been working on, not to mention that he seems to have worked with the previous royal scientist. The badass part comes from the fact that he's working as a sentry despite his scientific background yet he spends most of his time slacking off. But if you want to see how badass he really is, go ahead and push his button one time too many. Just remember, you're going to have a bad time.
  • If leading the Squad that wins practically every major victory of a war counts as badassery, Gunter Welkin from Valkyria Chronicles definitely counts. He's not a true soldier but just a student learning biology to become a school teacher. A skill which actually helps him win a number of critical battles, by using the environment to his advantage.
  • Jaina Proudmoore in Warcraft III is actually like this, seeing that she really LIKES studying and declares to be 'in love' with her studies or profession as a mage, since it lets her study a lot.
  • The World Ends with You
    • Sho Minamimoto. He will nuke you with pi.
    • Joshua. He's the most intelligent member of the playable cast, and he's the Composer, which means he's a physical god.
  • Shulk in Xenoblade Chronicles 1 is a rare example of a main JRPG protagonist being this. He is a weapons researcher who is studying the Sword of Plot Advancement, and eventually wields it himself. Even before that, he's pretty adept at swordplay, while being a whole lot sharper than the typical Idiot Hero.
  • Citan from Xenogears is one of the best examples of this. He enjoys reading, tinkering with machinery, and other bookish hobbies, yet is one of the planet's best swordsmen, as well as being a master Gear pilot who has had an Omnigear since even before the events of the game).
  • Chris McShell, Runner 10 from Zombies, Run!, is a quiet, unassuming statistician who is certainly physically fit but doesn't come across as rugged. His kill count is three times that of any other runner. His secret? Analysing the zombie's behaviours over many, many hours of study and theorizing until he came up with a mathematical model for zombie "flocking" behavior, and then using that model to predict their reactions and become a zombie killing machine. He's noted in the Runner's Guide as a "BAMF Statistician". Yes, yes he is.

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