Cowardly Lion / Video Games

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• Ota Matsushita in AI: The Somnium Files is a 25-year-old otaku manchild who after discovering a body panicked and ran off to call the police, not realizing he left his 12-year-old best friend behind at the scene. However, he beats himself up over his cowardice and reveals himself to be willing to go to extreme lengths to protect the people he cares about such as assaulting a police officer and going one-on-one with a Serial Killer to save his crush.
• Amnesia: The Dark Descent: Daniel is cripplingly afraid of the dark, of the horrifically disfigured monsters lurking about, and of the Shadow that is gradually taking over the entire castle, but he still confronts all three again and again as he makes the titular descent into Alexander's inner sanctum.
• Arc the Lad: Poco is a musician who's afraid of his own shadow… and who happens to be one of the strongest fighters of The 'Verse.
• Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout: Tao Mongarten often expresses doubt about the party's next adventure, and tries to convince them to reconsider, but in the end, he always goes along with them because he'd never abandon his friends.
• Baldur's Gate: Khalid. He's the easily unnerved Henpecked Husband of Jaheira, who is usually the first to have a morale failure and run in a battle (even though he has some of the highest HP) and can hardly form a sentence without stammering. One of his trademark phrases being "If at first I don't succeed the wife won't let me forget..." , but level him up enough and he makes for a pretty decent tank. And you don't want to have to deal with him while he's Dire Charmed. If you'd like a demonstration of Khalid not being as big a wimp as he seems, just send your group into a random inn and start indiscriminately slaughtering everyone. Watch as Khalid's usual stutter completely vanishes and he actually sounds sure of himself for the first time in-game.
• The Binding of Isaac: Isaac is a small, naked child capable of beating a gigantic adult, various deformed monsters, and eventually even Satan, all while constantly sobbing and regularly curled up in the Troubled Fetal Position.
• Bug Fables: General Ultimax is cocky and arrogant when he's backed up by a few elite warriors, or piloting an imposing tank. But when his backup is defeated or his tank is wrecked, he clams up and is visibly terrified of having to fight Team Snakemouth by himself, but still stands his ground and fights (with ineffective slaps) until he's taken down.
• Corpse Party: Satoshi Mochida hates scary stories. But once he finds himself in one, he actually handles himself pretty well.
• Dead Rising 3: Nick Ramos is skittish, jumpy, nervous, and most of his "bad-ass" battle cries are things like nervous grunts or cries of "oh, no!" That said, he still charges head-long into entire herds of zombies to save survivors and Took a Level in Badass as the game progresses.
• Devil Survivor 2: Daichi is always scared of the next demon attack and complains that the others are much more calm than him, but he'll always volunteer to fight and will drive a truck right onto a killer divine being to save his comrades.
• Team Dad Shuuji in Digimon Survive is The Finicky One, a bit of a chicken who shys away from any sort of risk even when it's impractical, and was initially terrified of his Digimon partner Lopmon (who's a bunny), but as the oldest member of the group he tries his best to be The Reliable One and look after the others. Even as he's shaking in his boots, he does his best to put on a brave face for his underclassmen and lead them out of danger.
• Disgaea:
  • Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories: Axel is a Dirty Coward; it's a positive trait for a Dark Hero to have, so he embraces it. Nevertheless, he pulls a couple of Big Damn Heroes moments and saves the protagonists.
  • Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice: Almaz is a normal human fighting demons; he has a right to be scared. Still manages pretty well for himself when it counts.
  • Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten: Desco swears she will do anything to protect her big sis Fuka — while standing resolutely behind her (justified in that despite being an Eldritch Abomination, she is also a little kid). She is one of the most badass characters in the game.
• Donkey Kong 64: Chunky Kong begged for mercy to a big monster to no avail. What followed was... well, let's just say it must hurt a lot for the monster.
• Dragon Age: Inquisition: Varric seems to believe he's a coward. He mentions in a conversation with the Inquisitor that it took him three years just to work up the nerve to confront his brother, Bartand, for abandoning him to die, and even then he needed his friend, Hawke, to convince him to do it. He then wonders if he'd be running from the current crisis if Cassandra hadn't literally dragged him into it in the first place. As the Inquisitor can tell him, though, there's nothing keeping him from leaving anymore, and he's still staying and fighting all the same.
• Dragon's Lair: Dirk the Daring usually attempts to put on a brave face when battling the disturbing and creepy creatures he has to face when saving Princess Daphne, but it's obvious that he's a freaking nervous wreck the entire time.
  • One of the best examples of how skilled he is comes when he's in the Blacksmith's forge, and a fire pops up around him and a possessed sword levitates and flings itself towards him. This time, Dirk doesn't scream, he just draws his sword and parries it. Then a mace floats up and he parries that, too. It's only when a freaking anvil pops up that he starts screaming, but when the lance comes up, he goes right back to parrying it, perfectly poised. It shows for all the times he Screams Like a Little Girl, he's a skilled swordsman and knight regardless.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Prince Edward Chris von Muir in Final Fantasy IV, the Spoony Bard. Edward has a mechanic in battle where he can Hide, which prevents him from being targeted (but also prevents him from attacking). He'll even Hide automatically if he's at low HP. That being said, he still sticks by the group during a war sequence against monsters, and even helps the party against the Dark Elf despite being horribly injured at the time.
  • In Final Fantasy VIII, any time actual work is proposed, a minor character named Zone immediately crouches by the wall and complains about stomach pains. Later, he goes off and buys emergency train tickets for himself, his leader, and the three main characters, not counting on there being one addition to the party. After a moment, he passes his own ticket to her, then immediately finds a corner to hug his stomach in.
  • Final Fantasy XIV: During "Facing Your Demons", the final Thaumaturge Class Quest, the Thaumaturge Guild's masters rally together to face the threat of the voidsent Mormo. While all five of them have had to muster their courage to take on a fight they were uncertain to win, one in particular is nicknamed Cocobygo "the Craven" during the duty in which you fight Mormo. Cocobygo, however, is the one who acts as tank for this fight. He's trembling and stuttering the whole time, but he does it.
    Cocobygo: <trembling> I-I will keep Mormo focused on me!
• Yarne from Fire Emblem: Awakening is constantly terrified of going extinct, being the last of his race. Despite this (or perhaps because of it), many of the other characters remark on the true ferocity of his fighting when the chips are down.
  • Fire Emblem Fates also gives you Ignatius, who is timid and has many fears. However, his paralogue revolves around him defending an entire village to prove his bravery, much to his father's surprise.
• Game & Watch: The player character of Climber is clearly scared out of his wits, but is fully capable of making it through his circumstances.
• The Centaur in Glory of Heracles II. When you meet him, he's being picked on by a bunch of kids, and joins you because he thinks tagging along will help him become brave. One of his battle quotes is even crying out that he's scared.
• Halo:
  • The Grunts. They are tiny, weak, and treated like cannon fodder by tyrants who are larger and stronger and far more numerous than the human supersoldiers. On top of that, they breathe methane instead of oxygen; this means they are constantly fighting in poisonous environments and relying on breathers that can be ripped out of their mouths/nostrils. The methane tanks they are forced to carry on their backs for survival are also extremely prone to explode when shot, thus they are also carrying their own death on their backs. These guys have every reason to be terrified, and yet many of them attempt suicidal attacks of bravery to great effect.
  • Also, the Marines and Army Troopers of the UNSC. It has been frequently stated that were it not for John-117 and the other Spartans, humanity likely would have been already overrun and destroyed. The Covenant are far more advanced in terms of firepower and raw physical strength than the UNSC, as even a single low-ranking Elite can tear through a whole Marine squad on its own. Human soldiers frequently make comments that make it clear they know how outmatched they are and that in all likelihood, they will die horrible deaths at the end of a plasma rifle. Yet, they do their best to fight effectively against these powerful foes. The only time they are seen to crack up is when facing the monster that is The Flood.
• Ib: While traveling with Ib in the gallery, Garry freaks out at things that Ib doesn't even bat an eyelash at (falling over in fear when a painting spits at him, or screaming when a vase falls over, causing Ib to tell him that his screaming was scarier than the vase falling over was), but when push comes to shove, he will do things that need doing, be it fighting off a psycho painting with a knife or walking through a room of poisonous gas. And he will willingly put himself on the line if Ib's in danger, and in some endings even dies for her sake.
• The Legend of Spyro: Sparx fits this trope nicely. He often voices his displeasure with the dangers they must constantly face, but he always sticks with Spyro. When he is a victim of Shoo Out the Clowns at the end of the series, he legitimately fights it, even though he knows he has no chance of surviving.
• The Legend of Zelda: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Yunobo's introductory cutscene shows him freaking out when he mistakes Link, a guy barely a quarter of his size, for a monster. He'll also crouch down and use Daruk's Protection whenever he encounters actual monsters. But he nevertheless braves monster-infested areas and lets himself be shot out of cannons when need be, whether to retrieve medicine for the Goron elder or to help Link board Divine Beast Vah Rudania.
  • Shown by Master Kohga of all people in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. When in a life or death situation, Sooga tells him to run, and he begins to... only to immediately change his mind and back him up. The DLC further shows that Kohga helped carry Sooga despite the insurmountable danger the duo was in. Ultimately Sooga forces Kohga to run for his life when the two hit an unwinnable situation, and it's clear Kohga still doesn't want to, but has no choice, and Sooga refuses to let Kohga die here. It also becomes the inciting incident where Kohga switches sides to take down Aster and Ganon.
• The Maw, a game on the Xbox Live Arcade. The title character is a blob who can eat just about anything and keeps getting bigger until it eats the entire planet, but it has a tendency to flee screaming from bigger enemies that posture in a frightening manner.
• MediEvil: Despite having to be dragged out of bed to lead the initial battle against Zarok, dying from the first arrow fired (this was glossed over by the king of Gallowmere), and some members of the Hall of Heroes not having much faith in him, Sir Daniel Fortesque still gives his all in defeating Zarok once and for all after being raised from the dead and getting a chance to redeem himself. The remake of the first game plays up some of his cowardly tendencies more; in that game, Dan was apparently shot when he was "pretending to tie his bootlaces."
• Monster Hunter 4: The Felyne Whitescruff from Cheeko Sands. The first time you meet him, he keeps whining about he's an easily frightened, good-for-nothing loser. After you take down Akantor, the same one who defeated his original master and made him so jittery in the first place, he asks to join you as a Palico. It gets better: it turns out he's an aggressive-type Palico who prioritises fighting large wyverns, with two special abilities, one that increases his damage and health massively if you are KO'd and another that tantamounts to him jumping on the wyvern's face and clawing away at its eyes, giving you an opening. Not bad, little buddy.
• As usual, Shaggy shows shades of this in MultiVersus, but it's given a twist here. Thanks to having mistaken a power crystal for candy, he became super-powerful and confident enough to fight the likes of superheroes like Superman and win, yet he's still afraid of ghosts and worries when his friends are missing.
• Abe from the Oddworld series. He was an employee/slave working at a terrible factory, and when he found out the the next food product were going to be made from his species, he makes a break for it alongside his other slaves. He is a meek fellow, always on the edge from danger, but he walks into it to save his fellow slaves and escape to freedom. in Soulstorm, he becomes a living legend to other Mudokon slaves who are working in other terrible places.
• The player character in Penumbra. The "Cowardly" part is represented in-game — if he so much as looks at a monster for too long, he'll panic and give away his position. "Lion" is made more apparent as you play the game and see just how much stuff he goes through while staying sane and ready for action.
• Hahn Mahlay from Phantasy Star IV, a meek young scholar who learns the instant death skills Vol and Savol.
• The third game in the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney trilogy has Ron DeLite, who's a bit of a meek crybaby, but still manages to maintain a flamboyant Phantom Thief alter-ego in Mask☆DeMasque. His wife, Dessireé, fell in love with him after he saved her from a pair of knife-wielding bank robbers. He was crying and yelling the whole time, but he succeeded!
• Aloth from Pillars of Eternity and especially Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire. No matter how many impressive things he's part of — facing down dragons, cleaning out undead-infested ruins, facing down the gods themselves at the end of the first game, and either working to dismantle or take over an Ancient Conspiracy by his own wits and effort between the first and second games — he never stops being a tetchy Nervous Wreck in conversations. Doesn't mean he's any less of a powerful wizard in the first game, and possibly a frontline Magic Knight in the second.
• Peppino of Pizza Tower is a terrified wreck who would like to be anywhere except the titular monster-infested fortress, but he's also a high-speed wrecking ball who can shred many of those enemies with ease.
• The partner Pokémon in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers is this for much of the game. They start off as very timid and nervous, being too afraid to even join the Wigglytuff Guild until the protagonist shows up to help them. However, they're shown pushing through that to get things done anyway, such as during the waterfall investigation where they decide to jump through to the Cave Behind the Falls despite their initial reluctance. By the end of the game, they've become genuinely more confident.
• Wheatley from Portal 2. He's scared of a lot of things (heights, birds, GLaDOS, etc.) and startles very easily. However, he still sneaks you out right under GLaDOS's nose, uses his flashlight despite believing he'd die if he did, detaches himself from his managment rail despite being afraid of heights and being told that this would also kill him, and has the nerve to talk back to GLaDOS in a situation where Chell can't help him. A lot of this likely stems from him being programmed to have bad ideas, and sacrificing yourself to use a flashlight and sounding off to GLaDOS are brave but very boneheaded moves.
• Brad "Chickenheart" Vickers in Resident Evil ditches his teammates (Jill, Chris, Wesker, and Barry) after the group gets attacked by mutant dogs, taking the team's helicopter and only means of escape, which strands them in the middle of the mountains thanks to his fear. Brad eventually does come back and attempts to contact Jill/Chris through the radio and he finally shows up during the final boss fight while tossing down a rocket launcher to you so that you can kill the monster in one shot.
• In Medieval II and Rome: Total War, generals will often bring up that there is no shame in feeling fear before a battle, but it is letting fear rule you which is cowardly.
  "There is no shame in fear. There is only shame in letting fear rule you! Try not to look scared, and you will find bravery in your heart!"
  "...any man who faces battle without concern, is a moonstruck fool. To be brave is to go forward anyway, no matter how afeared! That is why I go forward, with so many other brave men."
• If you allocate enough points to his Strength stat, the Chaos Hero from Shin Megami Tensei I can be like this.
  • He fits this trope whatever you do with him (unless you deliberately allocate his stats stupidly), Statistically Speaking. But he is never strong enough to defeat Ozawa until he Takes A Level In Badass.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Sonic's Kid Sidekick Tails. In Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 he's forced to face Eggman alone at certain points. Despite being clearly afraid, he musters the courage to save the day on his own. This gets averted in more recent games, though, where he tends to get Flanderized into a Cowardly Sidekick.
  • Amy Rose. In Sonic Adventure she's afraid of Zero and spends most of the game running away from him, but when this one hurts a little bird she was protecting, she goes Mama Bear and takes him down with her own hands (or rather, with her hammer).
• Star Control has the Spathi, who are hilariously scared of just about everything. However, when the "Evil Ones" began multiplying on their homeworld, they went from "Bronze Age" to "space-faring species" in under a century. Their ships are extremely tough, have backwards-firing homing weapons, and are virtually impossible to catch. Basically, if they have nowhere to run, they fight back hard. One character describes them as "a cowardly clam, armed with a Howitzer".
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Luigi, though this is better exemplified in the spin-off series Luigi's Mansion; he's clearly terrified half the time in both games due to his fear of ghosts, but manages to save his brother Mario in the first game and the entire time-space continuum in the second. Even in fan games, this is one of Luigi's traits. During an Optional Boss fight with the Headless Horseman in Rakenzarn Tales, after Kyuu's Taking the Bullet moment, he responds with a lighting attack that outright cripples the boss and makes the fight far easier.
    • Luigi's Mansion 3 has the boss ghost Kruller. He's probably as much of a scaredy-cat as Luigi is, but becomes more confident with the right tools.
  • In Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Mario contracts Bean Fever and the only cure is Crabbie Grass that grows in the Guffawha Ruins. This requires a dangerous solo trek which utterly terrifies Luigi. When reminded that Mario will not get better without it, Luigi forces himself to walk to the entrance of the ruins while trembling. The doctor even notes that Luigi's sheer brotherly love is forcing his legs to move.
  • Both Koops and Flavio in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. The former got better after defeating the Koopa-munching Hooktail, and the latter gets one moment of badass when he confronts the undead pirate Cortez and convinces him to lend them his ship. Flavio says it the best when he spells out his plan and the others call him insane:
    Flavio: I may be a coward and a cad, but I still lead you! I have a duty to protect you!
  • Mallow in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. He's Prone to Tears, but is a formidable magic user utilizing Weather Manipulation as his attacks.
• Umineko: When They Cry: Sakutaro is nervous by nature, to the point of being afraid to go outside unless he's quickly able to retreat into Maria's pocket, but when things get serious, he won't back down from protecting her. Doubles as a literal example of this, too.
• Karl, one of the recruitable engineers in Valkyria Chronicles, is meek to a fault, stammering a lot of his lines, and also having a personal potential called Head-Lit Deer that sometimes prevents him from dodging an enemy counterattack. That said, he's still a decent engineer, and can unlock potentials that show off his determination, including one that renders him outright invincible for the rest of his current action.
• View from Below: Ash is terrified of the monsters in Below and spends his first fight being too scared to fight back against the weakest enemy in the game. Later, he gains the courage to stand up to the Crimson Skulls, even when everyone around him is telling him to run away. In the final two chapters, he cowers again when he's forced to fight the Crimson God alone, but finds courage again after Bell sacrifices himself to save him. Ash then rushes back to the Soul Gate Tower to save Rose and work with her to finish off the Crimson God.

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