Characters / The Karate Kid: Samantha LaRusso

The Karate Kid Main Character Index
Daniel LaRusso | Johnny Lawrence | John Kreese | Terry Silver | Miguel Diaz | Robby Keene | Samantha LaRusso | Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz | Tory Nichols | Demetri Alexopoulos | Kyler Park
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Miyagi-Do and Associates | Cobra Kai and Associates | Eagle Fang and Associates | The LaRusso Family | Other Characters

Samantha "Sam" LaRusso

"Everyone's got a sob story. Doesn't give you the right to be a bully."

Played By: Mary Mouser

Appearances: Cobra Kai

"I felt like... karate just made everything worse for everyone. I've even got the scars to prove it. But years from now, if my scars have faded... the lessons that I learned, Mr. Miyagi's lessons, they'll be more powerful than the first time I put on a gi."

Daniel's teenage daughter who trained in martial arts as a child. Sam is dealing with the drama of high school and her new clique, eventually finding out how quickly people can turn when her new boyfriend starts a smear campaign against her. She later rejoins Miyagi-do and becomes Daniel's top student.

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A-E

• Action Girl: She was trained by Daniel and Mr. Miyagi at a young age, so despite being a few years out of practice, she quickly and efficiently handles a handsy Kyler. In Season 2 she begins training again alongside Robby as Daniel's top students.
  "You don't have to worry about me, Dad. I can handle myself. I'm a LaRusso."
• The Ace: Within Miyagi-Do. She's able to do a flip-throw takedown on Miguel without having practiced for years, and is able to analyze how he fought Kyler's gang in the cafeteria at a level that someone without experience wouldn't just know. And whereas Daniel starts all the rest of the Miyagi-Dos with Wax On, Wax Off (even the students that came from Cobra Kai), Sam jumps straight to the higher level lessons, since she had Mr. Miyagi and Daniel as her personal teachers; she flourished with the undivided attention of two of the best karate fighters in the Valley. She really cements herself as this at the Sekai Taikai qualifier when she is able to make such precise moves against Devon that even a judge who was bought by Silver couldn’t deny them winning her the match.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Engages in a drinking contest with Tory, which she wins... but gets inebriated enough to kiss Miguel where Tory can see, and is in no condition to return home, causing Robby to take her to crash at Johnny's place. The former kicks off the brawl that results in numerous injuries, including Miguel's near death, and the latter starts a chain of events that ends in Robby joining Cobra Kai.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Subverted. She is initially attracted to Kyler, the local Jerk Jock... until she finds out that he's a bully who only wants to get in her pants. She goes out with Miguel after he stands up to Kyler, and breaks up with him too when his own growing jerkass personality goes too far... only to again display attraction to him in Season 3 when he softens.
• All Your Powers Combined: A variation; having been trained under Miyagi-Do throughout most of her life as well as taking lessons from Eagle Fang more recently and adopting some of their combat stances and moves, which, by proxy, has some influence from Cobra Kai's ruthless style, allows Sam to develop a fighting style derived from the teachings of all three dojos in some way or another by the time she enters the 51st All Valley Karate Tournament. She only loses to Tory in the finals because the referee had been bribed by Silver and disallowed a point Sam scored, which would have been the second of three scored consecutively.
• Arch-Enemy: To Tory. Tory absolutely hates Sam for not only stealing Miguel away from her, but also having the privileged lifestyle that Tory never had in her lifetime. Whereas Sam on the other hand looks down upon Tory due to her vicious attitude, and actually fears her (for a time being) given Tory started the school fight and put Sam in the hospital (by lacerating her flesh). The rivalry starts to cool down one-sidedly when Tory receives assistance from Amanda in Season 4, then finally gets put to rest in Season 5 when Sam finally views Tory's terrible home life and hears of how abusively the Cobra Kai senseis have been treating her.
• Back in the Saddle:
  • After a whole season of refusing to take up karate again and showing only occasional glimpses of her badassery, in one of the last scenes of the first season finale, she goes back to the house's dojo and starts practicing again. She joins Robby as a fellow student of the Miyagi-Do Karate dojo starting in season 2.
  • In season 3, Daniel has to coax Sam to continue practicing karate when she decides to give it up after the arcade fight.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Subverted by Season 3. In the first two seasons, she is made up and styled attractively. In Season 3, Sam has claw marks on her arm from Tory's spiked knuckles, and her general appearance isn't nearly as immaculate as before. She frequently looks "off" — which makes complete sense in- or out-of-series, given all the inner turmoil and trauma she's dealing with.
• Berserk Button: She takes Tory breaking the home portrait of Miyagi personally, and it gives her the second wind she needs to fight back and defeat Tory.
• Big Sister Instinct:
  • She has this for Demetri by being the one to always stand up for him if he gets harassed.
  • Although she's often annoyed by Anthony's teasing, she still cares about him and is quick to defend him from Cobra Kai's students in Season 5 and draws the line at Yasmine trolling him at the water park. She later helps show him the ropes to karate when he starts doubting his ability and confidence.
• Birds of a Feather: With Miguel. Both have kind and caring hearts, were raised by good families, and have a strong moral compass. Both were victims of school bullying at the hands of Kyler and struggled through physical and/or emotional trauma from the school fight. The only difference is that Sam comes from a rich family with a successful business whereas Miguel comes from a working-class background.
• Brains and Brawn: The Brawn to Anthony's Brains in Season 5. Anthony’s the one who came up with the strategy to pass Chozen’s lesson and use his tech experience to expose Terry Silver, but Sam has way more combat experience than him.
• Break the Cutie: Oh boy, where to begin with Sam's troubles and turbulence the moment Cobra Kai comes back...
  • She's had to deal with the fact that her first two boyfriends were abusive, with Kyler wanting to sexually exploit her and defaming her at school when she rejects him, and Miguel resorting to violence as a first-choice solution to his problems. Still, Sam doesn't break too easily on those occasions, not to mention Miguel does work his way to become nicer and more mature later on.
  • She is not so lucky when Tory enters her life, especially when the latter hooks up with Miguel and Sam still has lingering feelings for him despite trying to move on with Robby. One drunken moment leads to her kissing Miguel and all hell breaks loose on the following day at West Valley High School. Tory maims and bruises her in retaliation, then Sam witnesses Miguel fall from the second floor and fracture his spine thanks to Robby, effectively giving her PTSD.
  • Season 3 outright turns her into The Woobie; she struggles with a Guilt Complex over the school brawl, Aisha moves away before Sam could fully reconcile with her, and Tory becomes a Trauma Button for her, which shows when Sam becomes petrified and frozen in fear the moment Tory arrives in the midst of the brawl in the laser tag warehouse. Sam can do nothing as her fellow Miyagi-Do students are soundly beaten and hearing Hawk break Demetri's arm severely cripples her mental state for a while, to the point of having nightmares.
  • In spite of the training and confidence she built up throughout Season 4, she ends up losing to Tory in the 51st All Valley Karate Tournament. Sam can do nothing but cry and lament to her father that all her efforts ended up being All for Nothing and return home, despondent (initially unaware until the end of Season 5 that the match had been fixed by Silver and she should've won).
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl:
  • Gentle girl to both insecure Miguel and troubled Robby at times, although she really prefers it when they act like Nice Guys in return.
  • Inverted in Season 4, as Sam becomes more aggressive thanks to Johnny's influence and the stress of her various run ins with Tory, while Miguel becomes more melancholic and sensitive thanks to Daniel's pacifist Miyagi-Do teachings.
• Bystander Syndrome: Several times in Season 1. She is hesitant to call out Yasmine for her bullying until it's turned towards her, doesn't stand up for Aisha when Yasmine posts the cruel meme of her, and doesn't try to help Miguel when Kyler and his friends are attacking him, even though she knows karate. The only time she averts this is when Miguel tries to start a fight with Robby. Justified and discussed in Season 3, when she suffers a panic attack after Tory shows up at the Golf 'N' Stuff fight and is unable to protect her friends from getting beaten up or Demetri having his arm broken. She spends the next few episodes feeling guilty and further traumatized about it.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': She kisses Miguel once in Season 2, while she's completely drunk. It sets off a devastating free-for-all at school, where Miguel ends up hospitalized with a spinal injury and Sam for lacerations and a broken rib.
• Cassandra Truth: In light of her experiences with Kyler, she criticizes both Aisha and Miguel for their new choice of a friend/date when they first start hanging out with Tory, while they both dismiss her criticisms as being based on simple jealousy. While Aisha and Miguel may have had a point that Sam is rushing to the judgement of somebody she doesn't know, Sam is ultimately proven correct that Tory isn't a very nice person.
• Character Development: In Season 5, Sam begins to recognize the struggles of others and realize how only looking at things through her own lens is not only selfish but detrimental. This allows her to empathize with people she's had exclusively antagonistic relationships with, including Tory and her own brother.
• Closet Geek: Before Season 1, Sam was best friends with the very nerdy Aisha and they used to go to science camp and dress up as chemical formulas for Halloween together. Sam ended up setting aside a lot of her old nerdy interests in the hopes of being accepted by the popular kids in high school.
• Conflicting Loyalty: Starting in episode 8 of season 4, she's both Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang because she told her dad she wanted to learn both fighting styles. This is at a time both dojos' relationships are at a rocky level, at both group and personal levels (especially with her Eagle Fang boyfriend Miguel, who himself had started growing fond of Daniel and Miyagi-do).
• Cool Big Sis: For Miyagi-Do in general throughout the series and evolves into this for her actual brother beginning in Season 5.
• Daddy's Girl: Daniel's a lot closer with her than with Anthony, teaching the former karate while the latter's always got his face buried in video games. Amanda even calls her Daniel's "Mini Me" a few times. In a flashback, it's revealed that Daniel claimed Sam as his child while she was still in utero! Deconstructed in Season 4 when Sam starts to realize that Daniel really expects her to be "LaRusso 2.0". In her efforts to establish her own identity, she begins to take Eagle Fang's teachings to heart, adopting some of Johnny's crude, aggressive, and even petty mannerisms, and for the majority of the season being the actual instigator in her rows with Tory.
• Deuteragonist: She's got the second most development amongst the teenage cast, behind Miguel.
• Dude Magnet: No fewer than three guys (Kyler, Miguel and Robby) vie for her attention in Season 1. There's also some subtle hints in the early seasons that Demetri may have an unrequited crush on her due to his having No Sense of Personal Space around her, although this is firmly dropped once he and Yasmine become a couple.
• Excellent Judge of Character: After Kyler turned out to be a jerk, she is much more wary of everyone around her. In Season 2, she's right on the money when she tells Aisha and Miguel that Tory is not a good person and they shouldn't be hanging out with her, and also is on the money at spotting when Miguel has shed the more negative elements of the Cobra Kai teachings.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Sam constantly wears her hair loose and styled in Season 1, when she's avoiding karate and trying to fit in with the "rich popular kids". Once she resumes karate in Season 2, her hair is constantly pulled back and she begins to wear more tomboyish clothing except for special occasions. The only exception is the final fight, when she really could have used it. In the first part of Season 3, Sam's hair is very unkempt, as she's suffering from trauma and worried about Miguel. Once she begins to confront her trauma head-on and also gets back together with Miguel, her outfits and hair are much more put together, now that a lot of weight has been lifted off her shoulders.

F-M

• Fair-Weather Friend: Initially. She doesn't stick up for Aisha when Yasmine refers to "one size fits all" as "false advertising" and launches a cyberbullying campaign against her. Then, after Aisha becomes one of the Cobra Kai power players and Yasmine loses her stock at her own birthday party, Sam goes back to Aisha. Downplayed in that it was a realization; Aisha gets eliminated in the quarterfinals at the All Valley Tournament, indicating that Sam is looking past that loss and reaching out to her instead of vice versa. Afterwards, she makes noticeable improvement in standing up for her peers, pushing Daniel to take Robby in when Robby confides in her about his living situation, standing up for Demetri repeatedly whenever Hawk is harassing him, leading the Miyagi-Dos to ambush the Cobra Kais when they begin causing Chris trouble at work, and standing up for Miguel once she rekindles things with him in season 3.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Her refusal to own up to her mistakes. Her friendship with Aisha was ruined after she prioritized popularity over her true friends then blamed Aisha for her choice in friends even though it was Sam who falsely accused Tory of stealing. When Tory confronted her about kissing Miguel, she doesn't apologize or try to explain herself, which made Tory even more furious. Then during the fight when she briefly gets the upper hand on Tory, she tells her to knock it off rather than using the opportunity to apologize, once again fueling her rage.
  • She also tends to want what she doesn’t have, in terms of boyfriends. Sam breaks up with one guy and starts dating the other, then gets jealous when that boyfriend moves on with Tory. This causes more problems with Tory than there already are. She does this first when Tory is dating Miguel and then when she brings Robby to prom.
• First-Name Basis: To emphasize their close relationship, Sam is the only member of the younger cast who consistently refers to Johnny by his first name rather than calling him "Sensei Lawrence." Even Miguel, who sees Johnny as a surrogate father, usually calls him "Sensei" rather than "Johnny."
• Foil:
  • To Tory. The main reason Sam and Tory become such instant bitter rivals is because of how fundamentally different they are as people. Tory is a Hard-Drinking Party Girl who sees nothing wrong with stealing alcohol from the beach club, while Sam is quiet and rule-abiding, leading Tory to derisively refer to her as a "nun" or "princess". Tory is aggressive and spiteful with a hidden caring side, while Sam is kind and empathetic with an occasional temperamental streak. Tory comes from a working-class background and struggles to keep her family together as their sole breadwinner, while Sam comes from a wealthy and more stable family. Tory embraces Cobra Kai's Attack! Attack! Attack! fighting style, while Sam follows in her father and Mr. Miyagi's footsteps in stating that karate should focus on defense.
  • To Robby. Despite their love of karate, sharing a karate style and a mentor in Miyagi-Do and Daniel, and being fans of Dirty Dancing, Robby and Sam are very much different, even while dating:
    • Robby is a juvenile delinquent while Sam is a well-adjusted teenager.
    • Robby lives in a crappy apartment and loses his access to electricity when his mom runs off and stops paying the bills, while Sam lives a rich life in a big house and never has to worry about her parents failing to cover the cost of utilities.
    • Sam and Robby's family situations couldn't be more different. Sam is part of a stable, traditional family, has a younger brother, was born in wedlock and has a very loving relationship with her Happily Married parents (especially her father) who have always been there for her. Robby is an only child born out of wedlock who was raised by a single mother and has a poor relationship with his constantly bickering parents, as his father abandoned and neglected him his whole life to the point that he now hates him, and while Robby loves his mom since she raised him, he grows somewhat resentful of her consistently neglecting him.
    • While Sam may have her disagreements with Daniel, she ultimately always remains loyal to her father and Miyagi-Do. Robby eventually allows his resentment of Daniel to push him into joining Cobra Kai and selling out Miyagi-Do's secrets to help his new dojo defeat them.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: In Season 2, this is her default response to Tory's accounts of her Dark and Troubled Past. In Season 4, it’s changed from a criticism of Tory’s behaviour to an excuse for Sam to be apathetic towards Tory’s situation and continue their grudge. It takes until the tail end of Season 5, and seeing Tory's situation with her own eyes, to realize that maybe the girl has a lot of legitimate rage and nowhere to put it, making the aggression of Cobra Kai extremely appealing to her, and that Sam's dismissals of her troubles didn't help.
• Generation Xerox:
  • She's inherited her father's hot head, kind heart, and love of karate. Amanda even refers to her as Daniel's "Mini-Me". She also shares his tendency to get herself in trouble by being easily provoked by her rivals and attacking them in inappropriate places, such as during a soccer game at school, right down to angrily yelling, "This school sucks!" just as Daniel did in the first film.
  • Like her mom, she can be very focused on being a Social Climber. She ditches Aisha for the more popular Yasmine and only comes back to Aisha when the latter lost her high standing and Aisha gained more standing. Her desire for popularity blinds her to what awful people Kyler and Yasmine are, though thankfully, she grows out of this attitude later on.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Sam wears a lot of pink and purple clothes, gives up on her nerdy interests to join the popular rich girls clique, wears a cheerleader costume for Halloween, and is a huge fan of movies like Dirty Dancing, while also being a very skilled karateka with a hot temper, a Tomboyish Name, and a knowledge of The Usual Suspects.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: As Miguel points out in Season 5, Sam really doesn't understand what Cobra Kai's indoctrination does to a person's psyche and decision-making because she's the only one of the teens who was never a member of the dojo^note Or in Demetri's case, took a lesson there before deciding their philosophy wasn't for him.. He and the others do, which is why they're all more eager to forgive Tory and accept her help while Sam isn't. She eventually takes his words to heart and goes to talk to Tory, finally sees her bad home life, and works with her to stop Silver and Cobra Kai.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: A lot of her outfits are purple or a mix of reds and blues, especially noticeable in her scenes with Miguel, reflective of her role as a bridge between the two dojos.
• Heir to the Dojo: While not brought up, Sam fills the role perfectly. She's the child of the U.S. branch of Miyagi-Do's current grandmaster, serves as The Ace of said dojo and is the one who usually takes charge every time Daniel isn't available.
• Heroic Second Wind: After spending nearly all of Season 3 too scared and traumatized to face Tory again, seeing the latter break the picture of Mr. Miyagi helps remind Sam what she's fighting for and she breaks out a bo staff for round two.
• Horrible Judge of Character: She should have seen Yasmine and Kyler's flaws a mile away. Luckily, she learns and quickly notices when Miguel starts to change.
• Hot-Blooded: Even though she's a Miyagi-Do, Sam does have some of her dad's hotheadedness to the point that several characters note she would fit right in at Johnny's Cobra Kai.
  • In 1x05, she confronts Kyler head-on in the cafeteria upon finding out about the rumors he's been spreading about her behind her back, and when he and his gang begin taunting her, she throws his tray and food aside, daring him to try and touch her so she can have the excuse to kick his ass. She even gets into a fighting stance, indicating she would have started the fight herself had Miguel not decided at that moment to settle his own score with Kyler.
  • In 3x04, Sam is prepared to throw down with Hawk in the cafeteria after he wrecks Demetri's project and slut-shames her, only backing down when Hawk plays victim to Counselor Blatt.
• Hypocrite: When Miguel reveals that Tory has a hard home life in being forced to care for her sick mother and her brother, Sam replies that everyone has a "sob story" but it doesn't give them the right to be a bully. In Season 4, she harasses Tory when she encounters her at her job, even kissing Miguel in front of her. While her rage may be justified given how Tory assaulted her, Sam chose to instigate the threat and act as a bully, which Daniel calls her out on.
• Iconic Sequel Character: Sam debuted in Cobra Kai, the Distant Sequel to The Karate Kid film series, as the Spin-Offspring of its original protagonist. Since her introduction, Sam easily solidified her importance to the lore.
• It's All About Me: Played with. She frequently gets concerned over situations that involve her and in season 1 is hesitant to speak up about bullying happening right in front of her when it would be bad for her social status to speak up. Her actions also make it clear that she'd rather have Miguel join a different dojo to make it easier to make her relationship with him acceptable since her dad won't approve of the relationship as long as Miguel is in Cobra Kai. On the other hand it does show she feels for people, even if she doesn't act on it. In season 2, when Robby's mother decides to enter rehab, Sam does ask Robby if he's even up for attending Moon's party considering the situation. However, she then proceeds to get drunk, cheats on Robby with Miguel, and puts Robby in a role where he has to take care of her, even asking him to hide her so she can avoid trouble. All in all, she is a teenager who's rather self-absorbed, but she can show moments where she does seem to try.]]
• It's All My Fault: When things go wrong, she can be very quick to blame herself or take way more blame than necessary. By Season 3, she's blaming herself for everything from the school brawl to Miguel's injury to her panic attack stopping her from saving Demetri from Hawk. As a positive, this guilt helps her reconcile most of her self-centered flaws and strive to be more considerate of other people. It's partially this development that inspires her to unite Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Zigzagged up and down in her rivalry with Tory. While her Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse statement is technically correct, Sam is speaking from a place of privilege with a fundamental lack of understanding of what kind of circumstances can drive a person like Tory to become who they are. She also uses this belief as an excuse herself to be an asshole once she knows she can win a fight with Tory, which is punching down and being a bully. And while Sam has every right to be furious and distrustful after being stalked and attacked by Tory twice, she is wrong to make the situation worse by taunting and picking fights with Tory when the latter is backing down. At the same time, Sam is correct in pointing out that her father and Johnny, two men in their fifties, can’t even set their high school drama aside when the stakes are so high, and that has arguably caused more problems than her feud with Tory. Sam is wrong in her part of her conflict with Tory but she doesn’t have really good role models.
• Jerkass Realization: Gets hit with this when she visits Tory in the Season 5 penultimate episode. After getting a true look at Tory's difficult home life, noticing her bloodied hand from Sensei Kim's "training", and learning what she had been going through in the dojo, Sam drops the hostility and offers to help Tory stop Silver once and for all.
• Kick Chick: She prefers kicks over punches whenever she fights.
• Male Might, Female Finesse: When paired with Robby. He's the more solid, powerful fighter; she's the quicker, more agile one.
• Martial Arts Staff: In the third season, her father teaches her to spar with bo staffs, which she then uses to duel a nunchuck-wielding Tory.
• Mirror Character:
  • Much like how Miguel and Robby mirror Johnny and Daniel, Sam herself is like Ali Mills. She's an Uptown Girl to the series' main hero, caught in a Love Triangle between the hero and his karate rival. However, unlike Ali, Sam is an Action Girl who actually participates in karate herself, and while Ali decided she wanted to be with Daniel early on, with the Love Triangle mostly existing inside his head, Sam does have conflicting feelings for Robby and Miguel. Both Sam and Ali also have to deal with their parents potentially disapproving of their boyfriend, but while Ali's parents dislike Daniel because of pure snobbery and she completely ignores their disapproval, Daniel has the more understandable motive of his grudge against Cobra Kai for misjudging Miguel and Sam is desperate for her father's approval of their relationship.
  • To Julie Pierce from The Next Karate Kid. She becomes a target for bullying after rejecting a jerk's advances and has to rely on her karate training to fend him off.
• Mistaken for Cheating: Due to her less-than-straightforward tendencies, Sam has problems with this.
  • She and Robby arrive at the canyon party at the wrong time, as an intoxicated Miguel incorrectly deduces that Sam is dumping him for Robby, and takes a shot at Robby... only to miss and accidentally hit Sam instead. More understandable when you notice that Sam and Robby are holding hands when Miguel notices them^note though if you listen closely, Sam thanks Robby for helping her down the steep hill, it's entirely understandable Miguel would miss that due to distance and his drunken state, and Sam was hiding Miguel from her parents, making him think she was ashamed of him (when in reality it was because Daniel wouldn't approve of her dating anyone from Cobra Kai).
  • After getting out of juvie in Season 3, Robby finds Sam having an intimate moment with Miguel and paranoidly accuses her of dumping him for Miguel the moment he went to juvie. In this case, though, the situation happened because while Sam considered herself broken up with Robby after he injured Miguel in the school fight, Robby didn't as he thought Sam kissing Miguel at Moon's party was just a drunken mistake.
• Morality Chain: Sam is usually the person to remind Daniel what he's fighting for and keep him from Jumping Off the Slippery Slope. She convinces him to take a less aggressive stance against Cobra Kai by reminding him that many of its students are her friends, talks him into fighting to keep the All-Valley tournament going after it almost gets cancelled, and her arrival is the only thing that stops him from violently finishing off Kreese.
• Morality Pet: She functions as one to Miguel, and plays a part in a lot of important moral decisions he makes. His beating at the hands of Kyler's gang at the Halloween dance in season 1 was because he was acting in defense of her honor (after hearing Kyler's gang talk about how Kyler had come close to date-raping Sam had Daniel not caught him). His beating Kyler up in the cafeteria afterwards is him standing up for her (as Kyler was spreading rumors about her) as much as it is about settling his own beef with Kyler. He fights Hawk viciously at Coyote Creek because Hawk had trashed Miyagi-Do and stolen Mr. Miyagi's Medal of Honor, which was a valuable heirloom to Sam's family, and also returns it personally to the LaRusso house clearly expecting to be handing it to Sam (only to encounter Robby instead). And in season 3, he cuts ties with Cobra Kai due to them bullying her and the rest of Miyagi-Do.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • She's horrified by Miguel's injuries and hospitalization after the school brawl in the Season 2 finale, and guiltily blames herself for kissing him (even though he's admittedly more to blame since he approached her and was completely sober while Sam was drunk), provoking Tory's wrath, and setting the whole thing off.
  • Later in Season 3, she can't stop blaming herself for freezing up in fear while Demetri gets his arm broken by Hawk.
  • In Season 5, when she finally gets a firsthand glimpse into Tory's home life, she feels horrible about her previous dismissals of it and regrets being so insensitive.

N-Y

• Nice Girl: Unlike her younger brother, Sam's a very kind and polite person, despite growing up in a well-off family. So long as you're not Tory, though she's the exception, not the rule.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Her impulsive decision to cheat on Robby with Miguel while drunk ends up setting off a chain of events that ends with Miguel in the hospital and Robby in juvie.
• Oblivious to Love: Robby quickly develops a crush on her but Sam doesn't initially notice. Subverted when she tries to kiss him while trying to get over Miguel, then they do start dating.
• Pink Means Feminine: To the point that it's considered her character color.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: At 5'3" in height, she's even smaller than the other action girls Aisha and Tory. She can still go toe-to-toe with the best students of either side.
• Poor Communication Kills: Sam's relationships tend to fall victim to this.
  • Not being straightforward with Daniel about initially dating Miguel, or Miguel about the reason she can't introduce him to her family (even though it's the dojo rivalry more deeply at fault), leads to Miguel reacting badly when he sees her with Robby, leading to their breakup as well as other people getting hurt.
  • She's also on the receiving end. While she and Robby were pretty much broken up at the end of the school fight, Robby's failure to reply to any of her letters while he was in juvie only serves to reinforce her notion, as does Robby later blaming her and refusing to listen when he catches her and Miguel together.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: Not to the same extent as Demetri, but she makes references to Keyser Soze and the Force and seems to be generally well-versed in movie trivia.
• Powerful and Helpless: Despite being a very proficient karate student, she completely shuts down in the middle of the arcade fight when Tory turns up calling out to her, and her subsequent panic attack renders her helpless to aid her teammates as the Cobra Kais turn the tide of the fight and Hawk breaks Demetri's arm.
• Privileged Rival: How Tory sees her, since the two get off on the wrong foot, quickly build up enmity, and both date/dated Miguel and Robby.
• Really Gets Around: Sam becomes a bullying target of Slut-Shaming after breaking up with Kyler. She also receives a nasty comment from Hawk lampshading this and mentioning that she sleeps with all her boyfriends, which may or may not be what other people believe too. A worried Daniel finally invokes this when he walks in on her and Miguel making out in the dojo in Season 3, concerned that her fairly rapid boyfriend switches are adding more drama to her love life and general life than she needs.
• Sex Is Violence: She's inherited her father's knack for karate as a prelude to makeout sessions, as she does twice with Miguel and at least once with Robby.
• She's Back: Not even spending most of Season 3 with PTSD will let her tolerate Mr. Miyagi's picture being damaged.
• Short Teens, Tall Adults: At 5'3", she is half a foot shorter than her parents and most of the other Miyagi-Do students.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Sam is overall considered the golden child of the family while Anthony was basically left to his devices. Sam learned karate from a young age whereas Anthony only recently started training. Sam is very much an Action Girl who is not afraid to throw down even against the likes of Kyler or Tory while Anthony favors the "thinking man's" approach with his karate training and would rather avoid getting into an actual fistfight.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: She starts Season 1 always dressing like she's on her way to a job interview or a party. After she starts dating Miguel, she starts wearing regular pants, now that she's gotten over the popularity thing and is focused on just being herself. In Season 2, she dresses more like the average teenage girl (t-shirts, blouses, jackets), reflecting her continued focus on being more humble. In Season 3, while she's dealing with her PTSD, her outfits and hair are not as good-looking as in the previous seasons. Once she rekindles her relationship with Miguel and gets back into the hang of karate, she starts to pay more attention to both her hair and attire.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: After dealing with Kyler, Sam learns to be more selective with whom she dates and seeks guys who are actually nice and respectful of her. The problem is Miguel and Robby keep taking turns being the "good man"...
• The Smurfette Principle: She's the only female fighter within Miyagi-Do. While Devon joins Eagle Fang in Season 4, both Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang are split until the final matchup with Sam against Tory, and even for the majority of Season 5, Devon defects to Topanga and Silver's Cobra Kai, leaving Sam as the only female fighter in Miyagi-Fang. Even Mitch lampshades this when he betrays Miyagi-Fang for Cobra Kai despite Tory and eventually Devon allying with the combined dojos.
• Spin-Offspring: Daughter and eldest child of The Karate Kid series' original protagonist, and is one of the main characters of the Distant Sequel.
• Spoiled Sweet: She's from a very wealthy family of high standing and has access to many luxuries, but is at her core a good person who never tries to flaunt her status.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: With Miguel. As he's Johnny's star pupil, she has to keep her relationship with him a secret because she knows her dad will never approve of her dating a Cobra Kai.
• Still Got It: As proven when she fends off Kyler's advances; in turn, she is inspired to ask if Miyagi-Do has "room for one more" student.
• Stone Wall: On more than one level, she is Demetri's Distaff Counterpart: almost entirely defense-oriented and thus unlikely to get annoyed by multiple shots. That also makes her the flip side to Tory, whom she faces (and ultimately disposes of) in the school brawl.
• Sympathetic Adulterer: Played with as of the end of Season 3. After Sam breaks up with Miguel, she begins dating Robby. Then at Moon's party, after finding out Miguel had returned one of Miyagi's heirlooms (and consuming copious amounts of alcohol), she kisses him, despite the fact that she's still with Robby, and Miguel's still with Tory. It's actually not played particularly sympathetically, as Miguel tells her it's wrong...but it's incredibly clear that both of them really only regret the fact that they're kissing while they're each in relationships with other people. And this action is seen by Tory, who chooses to pick a fight with Sam that turns into a full scale riot and ends with both Sam and Miguel in the hospital. However, their feelings do eventually reignite and they get back together late in Season 3... with a hurt Robby having shown up just slightly before and seeing the whole thing as Sam dumping him for Miguel the second he was out of the picture.
• Tautological Templar: Much like her father, Sam firmly believes that since Miyagi-do are the "good guys" and Cobra Kai (or Tory more specifically) have committed several atrocities against them and Eagle Fang, everything she does against them is morally right. This leads to problems in Season 4 when she goes out of her way to mock and provoke Tory out of a belief that she deserves it after her past misdeeds and is apathetic to how dire Tory's situation is.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: In Season 4, Sam uses Tory's own threat against her, which Tory used before the school brawl in Season 2.
  Sam: I'm coming for you, bitch!
• Tomboyish Name: Almost always referred to as "Sam" and not Samantha. It has yet to be played as a true Gender-Blender Name with any Mistaken Identity consequences.
• Took a Level in Badass: As evidenced by her Final Battle with Tory.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In season 4, after Johnny training Miyagi-Dos for a day and Sam being the only one to roof jump in episode 3, she unexpectedly bonds with him and becomes interested in his more offensive training style. It comes to a point that, in episode 8, she joins the Eagle Fangs while remaining a Miyagi-Do. Unfortunately, she also adopts some of the unhealthier facets of Eagle Fang ideology, which in their turn were Cobra Kai holdovers, like "strike first" which led her to provoke and start a fight with Tory that the latter was trying to avoid given that she was thankful for Amanda's help (though in this case, Tory kind of broke her promise to Amanda to stay away from Sam as she and Robby wanted to mess with her and Miguel at prom, and Tory partly started the fight by insulting Sam when they encountered each other, causing Sam to kick her). She eventually calms down after several people call her out on her attitude, and in the penultimate episode of Season 5, she has a Jerkass Realization upon seeing Tory's home life and learning the true depths of how Cobra Kai was abusing the latter.
• Trauma Button: Tory becomes one to her in Season 3 after their fight in Season 2 left Sam with a number of cuts and bruises, which is furthered when Sam literally freezes up in the laser tag brawl the moment Tory announces her presence. She even has nightmares of Tory trying to murder her as a manifestation of her guilt over the school and laser tag fights. Her Character Development in Season 3 is dealing with and overcoming said trauma, which she achieves during another confrontation against Tory in the LaRusso household.
• The Unapologetic:
  • Despite apparently learning that Tory didn't steal her mom's wallet, Sam never apologizes to her, though the fact that Tory had a snarky attitude towards Sam over the whole thing probably had something to do with it.
  • Played more subtly with Miguel; Sam tells him she's sorry because she didn't know he returned the Medal of Honor, however, she never accuses him of doing so, so she is essentially apologizing for nothing.
  • After she kisses Miguel, she drunkenly apologizes to Robby, but he doesn't know what she's talking about and she doesn't get the chance to clarify before the brawl at the school. Then he's on the run and in juvie, and by the time he gets out and Sam could clarify things, she's already gotten back together with Miguel.
• Undying Loyalty: Even as Sam begins to disagree with Daniel's karate philosophy and response to Cobra Kai's attacks in favor of Johnny's, she always remains personally loyal to her father and never entertains the idea of leaving Miyagi-Do. Even during Daniel and Johnny's point fight to determine who will take over the kids' training, it's clear from the smile on Sam's face when Daniel scores a point that she's rooting for him, despite taking Johnny's side in the argument that caused the fight to begin with.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Miguel. In Season 2, they still have feelings for each other despite dating Tory and Robby, respectively. They resolve it in Season 3.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The events of her involvement that led to the warring dojos. At the end of Season 2, she is in the hospital and blames herself for all the events that unfolded.
• Uptown Girl: To both Miguel from Reseda and juvenile delinquent Robby. She's pointed out to Miguel as one of the "rich girls" on his first day at West Valley. Robby later hesitates about starting a relationship with her because he doesn't want to seem disrespectful of the LaRussos after they take him in. That said, Sam is very cognizant of her status and wealth, and often tries to downplay it every chance she gets.
• Victory by Endurance: Of the "Dodge Tank" variety. Sam isn't quite able to generate the power necessary to end fights with decisive blows, so she generally dodges and parries her opponent's strikes, letting them wear themselves down trying to hit her.
• Waif-Fu: She's quite small in comparison to Aisha or Tory, but she's arguably the most experienced of the three in karate (Sam started training with her dad when she was very young, though she hasn't kept in practice for years). Her fighting style works with her short stature and small frame to utilize quickness, agility, and redirecting and controlling her opponent's movements.
• Weak, but Skilled: Compared to Tory. Sam is smaller, possibly weaker, and less boisterous, as well as less willing to resort to dirty tactics in a fight. Yet she manages to outmaneuver a lot of Tory's attacks and appears to be the more skilled fighter of the two. While she seems to suffer the worst of the scuffle in the aftermath, being hospitalized while Tory was still training with Kreese, she still wins the fight in the moment, managing to reverse an attempted strike with spiked knuckles and kick Tory down the stairs.
• What the Hell, Hero?: After Robby accidentally kicks Miguel off the second floor, Sam is the first to yell, "Robby, what did you do?!"
• Women Are Wiser: Double Subverted. Sam effectively takes over Miyagi-Do in Daniel's absence for the first half of season 3, but her tenure as leader is absolutely disastrous, as the Miyagi-Dos get in serious trouble for causing fights with Cobra Kai at school and the fight at the laser tag arena that she leads them into is a total Curb-Stomp Battle in Cobra Kai's favor that ends with Demetri getting his arm broken. However, later in the season, Sam stands up for Miguel to the councilpeople, and is the first to make the realization that Miyagi-Do will stand a better chance if they're allied with Eagle Fang.
• Yin-Yang Bomb: In Season 4 at the All-Valley tournament, under the advice of Daniel and Johnny, she fights not with either a Miyagi-Do or Eagle Fang style, but a fusion of the two that gives Tory serious trouble. Even before the final, her understanding of both schools and willingness and ability to switch between them caught several Cobra Kais by surprise.

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