Troperville
Editing Help
Tools
Toys
|
"There's nothing mere about that mortal."
"Batman has no superpowers and he competes with the big-dogs."
"Pfft! Batman is the big-dog!"
— Anonymous
In a world with supernatural dealings or superpowers, this character is the one who is able to keep being useful through intellect, martial arts abilities, general ruthlessness, or just being Crazy Prepared.
They notably have none of the fantastic enhancements, magic or special powers that others do. It might even be a sore point for them, but that just makes us encourage them more. Female versions are usually Action Girls with a Girl Posse or Lovely Angels.
It's become increasingly common for the Badass Normal to be a protagonist, in contrast to the ideal lead, as it supposedly makes him easier to relate to. However, in ensembles, they are usually the leader, or at least the brains of the outfit, to compensate.
Sometimes a person is normally superpowerful, then Brought Down To Normal only to reveal that they remain just as badass.
If a Badass Normal is capable of things that should only be superhuman, then they have a Charles Atlas Superpower (but isn't mutually exclusive). If Badass runs in their family, it's because Lamarck Was Right. If they are given superfluous superpowers (especially in Fan Fiction), you get a Badass Abnormal.
The Badass Normal only happens in a world of superpowers or widespread genetic engineering or other artificial enhancements (or magic). Just because someone was able to kill one Super Soldier out of ten in the world does not make them a badass normal. Likewise, this is not a character who is ill equipped with outdated technology while their enemies have top-of-the-line gear. They have to be at an extreme disadvantage and regularly deal with enemies or even allies with an inherent advantage (and not just with Puny Earthlings either). If all things were equal, a Badass Normal would win every time. The primary thing is how do they compare to other normals (of their species) and how do they compare to super-powered beings. So please remember this when you put your favourite character/military force in this page. You may want to distinguish your favourites from the typical Badasses, but it's not a bad thing if they don't qualify for this particular trope.
Just to reiterate, if they have strange or superhuman abilities, and this isn't the arc where these powers have been excised, they are not normal. This is a character type, not a plot trope.
Often overlaps with The Team Normal (if this character joins a superpowered team).
A Sub Trope of Badass. Super Trope of Badass Bystander. One of the potential levels a character can have.
Compare Arthur Dent, Weak But Skilled, Puny Earthlings.
Contrast with Overshadowed By Awesome, where a character is by reasonable means strong compared to regular people or even superpowerful, but can only be considered "normal" when compared to the people they hang out with, who are vastly stronger. Because of this they often Cant Catch Up.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Comics
- Batman fills this role when he's required to be in an ensemble. Despite having no inherent superpowers, he's earned a spot in the inner circle of the Justice League Of America, fighting alongside the likes of Superman courtesy of a steel-trap intellect combined with a bit of a mean streak that means he can consider plans other members can't, and consider them well. Batman has the proven ability to develop the means to disable each of his fellow Leaguers — proven when those plans were stolen by villains and used to great effect. This has likely become a case of Memetic Mutation, as Batman's badassery has been stretched to ridiculous proportions, and many comic readers firmly believe that Batman is invincible. And writers agree.
- Wesley Willis put him in his place
 , though.
- To put it another way, whenever a Justice League villain mockingly says of Batman, "He doesn't even have any powers!", get some popcorn.
- Among many Crowning Moments of Awesome, an Elseworld Spectre has described him as "the zenith of human fortitude and ambition", while an in canon Superman described him more simply as "the most dangerous man on the planet".
- Honestly, Batman's Badass Normal status is cemented by the fact that several high-profile beings (including the above mentioned Spectre and Superman) have such high regard for a "mere mortal." Harbringer once refered to him as "the Scourge of all Evil."
- Nightwing (The original Robin's adult superhero identity) is likewise unpowered and is on par with Batman in most of Batman's skills. He surpasses him in leadership ability: he's about the only person in the world that every superhero would listen to without question. Heck, Nightwing is Batman now, so it comes full circle.
- It's a bit of a stretch to call him normal, but the Joker is essentially this. In most portrayals, he doesn't actually have any powers, but he's still fully capable of going toe-to-toe with any superhero in The DCU, including Superman and Wonder Woman, and often will come very close to beating them.
- The DC Universe's villain community includes such powerful beings as billionaire super-geniuses, nigh-immortal cosmic dictators, biblical-scale demonic entities and even literal gods. The fact that the villain that most scares the crap out of every single hero (and many of the previously mentioned villains) is a mere insane mortal who looks like a clown speaks volumes.
- The Marvel Universe loves these.
- In the Marvel Universe, Hawkeye has no powers, just a bow. And, when alien invaders summon a zombie army to destroy the universe, guess who is one of the only two people standing at the end of it. Go on, guess. Not bad for a carny.
- Plus Hawkeye II (also known as Golden Archer, Wyatt McDonald of Squadron Supreme) and Hawkeye III (Kate Bishop, jokingly called "Hawkingbird"). The latter's first appearance in the Young Avengers, all either superpowered or having fantabulous armor, involves her saving the team's bacon during a botched hostage situation, later to become the official "Bad Ass" member of the team.
- Mockingbird.
- "I may not have the claws and the webs...but I know a thing or two about a thing or two. Yeah, that's right...run like a bitch."
- Also Nick Fury (superpowers limited to halted aging) and Dum Dum Dugan, of SHIELD!
- As proof of the latter's badass normal credits, he is the only person ever to be in a fist fight with Godzilla.
- Most members of S.H.I.E.L.D even. Especially Sharon Carter.
- Bucky, prior to the cybernetic arm and becoming Winter Soldier.
- Black Widow: "world class athlete and gymnast, expert martial artist (including karate, judo, aikido, savate, various styles of kung fu, and boxing), markswoman, and weapons specialist as well as having extensive espionage training. She is also an accomplished ballerina." says Dr Wiki.
- Lady Bullseye.
- Almost every Daredevil villain.
- Barracuda.
- Similarly, The Punisher has no superpowers, but more than makes up for it with deadly martial arts skills, a brilliant tactical mind, and enough firepower to destroy a
small country. The skills of both the Punisher and Captain America are such that they've repeatedly tangled with superhuman foes and come out ahead by using their skills in clever and creative ways. (The MAX (mature readers) Punisher story Born may subvert this by implying that he may have made a deal with the Grim Reaper to continue to live in order to keep killing, but it is the only such hint in all of MAX Punisher. Otherwise, he's just a Badass Normal who looks his age and has been confined to bedrest multiple times from severe injuries.)
- Notably, during an obligatory (albeit justified, insofar as Cap does not approve of Punisher's approach) tussle at the start of one of their team-ups, Punisher knocks Cap's flying shield down. Cap is shocked, to say the least.
- Sadly he has no social life and spends absolutely no time in having fun (unless you call killing criminals fun) which weakens him slightly but makes him more physically and mentally hardy.
- He does try and have fun once in a while, like seeing a movie. He calls this "Cinderella Moments". Of course, Microchip mellowed him out lot, until Frank blew up his head. Downer.
- He does have something resembling a social life in the MAX series, where he is shown visiting a few bars or diners from time to time. Also, he has a brief and rather bloody relationship with Kathryn O'Brien.
- Similarly, Marvel Comics' Kingpin uses both his powerful brains and even more powerful brawn to keep the costumed villains in their place, and screw over the heroes.
- On the other side, there's Lex Luthor, who has no intrinsic powers, yet is a match for Superman. He is one of the primary villains in Justice League, and has dominated most supervillains who do have powers.
- Although this is less being a "badass normal" and more likely because most heroes will not kill or maim, and thus the only way to STOP Luthor is to leave him alive and able to escape.
- Alex Wilder, from Runaways, who's also team leader. It turns out he's The Mole, but that in no way reduces the badassitude of his actions.
- Chase Stein, despite being considered the least intelligent of the group, has street smarts enough to figure out how to outwit the Gibborim while he also forcibly recruits the geek squad who worked for Wilder Senior.
- Mina Murray, from The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, is the team leader by dint of her sheer force of personality.
- In the Adaptation Decay-filled movie, Mina gains Vampire powers, and the Badass Normal team leader mantle is handed off to Allan Quatermain. Considering that he's played by Sean Connery, it's arguably one of the few changes that works.
- Are we reading the same comic? I thought it was obvious Mina was always a vampire, her neck is covered with scars, which she describes as "not exactly the two discrete puncture marks of legend", and she has on occasion displayed unexplained abilities, or at least the suggestion of them. I thought the film just spoiled the big reveal to speed everything up. And Quatermain was always badass normal, and so was Cpt. Nemo.
- Christopher Rudd from the Lucifer comics is a normal human, torn from the painfields of hell and soon entangled in the plots and betrayals of the most mighty beings in the universe, up to and including God himself. He still manages to kill at least one major demon in single combat, obtain rulership of hell and even lead its legions into heaven's walls as a victorious army. During his last scenes he actually manages to wound the living incarnation of the apocalypse itself, something Lucifer himself struggled to do.
- Thug Boy from Adam Warren's Empowered takes this trope a step further. He's a Mook who'd made a successful living at getting the better of both superheros and villains alike.
- The Green Arrow family (Green Arrow, Green Arrow II, Red Arrow, and Speedy) are all unpowered. Improbable Aiming Skills and Trick Arrows aside, Green Arrow II is one of the best martial artists in the world, Speedy is an HIV-positive superheroine, Red Arrow is the fastest archer in the world, and GA himself is mostly a being of pure, unbridled moxie. He's one of the few people that are completely unafraid of Batman.
- Lobster Johnson from the Hellboy-verse. Armed only with guns, bombs, and a glove for burning the Claw of Justice onto his enemies' foreheads, the Lobster manages to hold his own against The Mafia, Nazi cyborgs, Yetis, Ninja, and a Yellow Peril villain attempting to summon Eldritch Abominations.
- Marvel Comics recently came up with the character "MVP" who manages to become the best human possible, by various exercise programs and diets. Yes, he ate his veggies and did his pushups in just the right combination and everyone thought he had superpowers.
- Pretty much everyone in the Blue Beetle cast that doesn't have superpowers, especially
Anger Girl and Stick Boy Brenda and Paco.
- One issue of Superman, pastiching the Silver Age, had a story where practically everyone in Metropolis gained superpowers identical to Superman's, going so far as to don capes and costumes (and Superman himself having to don a rather tacky costume while still masquerading as Clark Kent) and the mayor proposing the city name be changed to Superpolis. Then Metallo shows up and exposes everyone to his kryptonite, and they start dying from it like Superman would... until Detective Dan Turpin (who appeared earlier and disparaged Superman over how real crime fighters don't need superpowers), dressed in normal clothes, walks out of the crowd, unaffected, and arrests Metallo and saves everyone. It turns out the whole situation was set up by Mr. Mxyzptlk to give everyone superpowers - along with a kryptonite weakness - but since the detective wholeheartedly didn't want to get powers, he didn't get kryptonite vulnerability either. Then he gives Mxyzptlk a note to read, tricking him into banishing himself to the fifth dimension again. In other words, several dozen superpowered people lay around gasping for breath while a portly detective in a bowler hat outwitted two major villains.
- Dan "Terrible" Turpin is pretty much that badass in every adaptation, especially Superman The Animated Series where he stood toe-to-toe with Darkseid and didn't blink. It cost him his life, of course, but he knew that going into it and still stood up to the Man.
- How badass is he? He's so badass Darkseid used him for his new body.
- Ultimate Marvel had a similar story where everyone had super powers because the Skrulls gave them a magic pill. Unfortunately, the pill would eventually kill everyone who took it, which was the Skrull's way of conquering worlds. The Skrull leader claims to be invincible because he wears a suit that copies the powers of anyone. Ben Grimm is the only one who didn't take the pill, and when the Skrulls inevitably kill all the supers they empowered, leaving the emperor with no one to copy except Ben-normal, he defeats the Skrull leader. Then it all got erased through time travel, but still.
- Cassie Hack of Hack/Slash habitually fights superpowered Ax Crazy undead with no more than combat training, ferocity, and a very large friend.
- New York in the Marvel Universe is both hero and villain central, so the NYPD came up with Code B.L.U.E., a police unit that uses training, tactics, Wonderful Toys, and brilliant improvisation to deal with superhuman beings. They've taken down Gods.
- Also in the MU, Storm of the X-Men lost her powers for some time, made do as a Badass Normal, and still proved a great field leader of the team, beating out the powered Cyclops for the leadership position (although Cyclops was mentally influenced into losing by Madelyne Pryor). It even proved an advantage at one time, when the team was trying to stop the infamous massacre of the Morlocks. During that battle, a villain who could neutralize powers with his touch tried to do so with Storm, but she had no powers to affect and he left himself wide open for a knockout punch by her to put him out of action. She's also taken out Callisto and Crimson Commando in hand-to-hand combat, both of whose mutations make them nearly superhuman fighters, and she did so without using her powers.
- The earliest Grendels all fit into this category, being only humans armed with an electrified Blade On A Stick who can take on Anti Hero werewolf Argent.
- Captain America is a borderline example - yes, the Super Soldier Serum worked on him, but he's generally taken to be "peak human". Exactly what that means depends on the writer; generally it's interpreted as being essentially the Charles Atlas Superpower, bringing him to about the level that any human could get to given the right combination of genes, upbringing, and extensive training. And yet he's in the thick of all the big world-threatening events, and tends to win due to ingenuity and determination. Popularity Power does have an effect too.
- Alec Swan, protagonist of The Ultraverse's Firearm is a former secret agent turned Private Detective armed with nothing more than his wits and a Hand Cannon.
- In Johnny Saturn, both Johnny Saturn I and II are badass normals. Indeed, in a world full of high-powered superheroes, non-powered vigilantes are refered to as Mystery Men.Mystery men get by on martial arts, toughness, and willpower.
Fan Fic
- BlackDragon6's Ranma 1/2 story Guardian features a character named Ken "Snake" Yakata, a Jewish gun nut who is routinely billed as the most deadly fighter in the Department of Abnormal Phenomenae Containment with the sole exception of Ranma. This is in spite of the fact his other officers are: A powerful psychic psycho capable of cutting the heads off powerful vampires, a superhuman capable of going toe to toe with cyborgs and the worst boss enemies in the Resident Evil series, and a bloody Zergling. All Snake has is a shotgun.
- To further emphasis the extent of this, it should be mentioned that Snake terrifies every single one of his fellow officers, save Ranma. To an extent, anyway. They know he can't shoot them and thus they feel somewhat secure around him, but around his evil clones they are terrified.
- The Pokemon Dark Fic Poke Wars: The Subsistence features a canon character known only as Samurai. Even though he has some Pokemon, he seems to fight mostly with his katana and he is possibly the most Bad Ass character in the story.
Film
- Do not underestimate the brave warriors of humanity's armies in the Transformers Film Series; what they lack in physical size, brute force, and technology they more than make up for with superior organization, tactics, firepower and sheer numbers. This Megatron learned the hard way after underestimating them during his battle with Optimus Prime in Downtown L.A. Still going to die by the hundreds without Autobot fire support against the big guys, but better than the other versions.
- Not to mention the surviving soldiers that were stranded in the desert following the Decepticons' invasion and gotten themselves in a tussle against Scorpinok. Not only did they send him packing, they even managed to hurt hit plenty and took a piece of their tail!
- And then there was Devastator. True, his defeat was an Epic Fail, but it was a good warning: the humans are developing weapons that can take down Transformers in a single shot.
- There's also the fact that in the second film, the humans probably racked up more Decepticon kills than all of the Autobots combined. In fairness, probably because Optimus Prime was dead half the film.
- Star Wars examples:
- Jango Fett, "father" of Boba Fett, is able to fight Obi-Wan, one of the most skilled Jedi in the entire series (for example, despite the fact that Anakin vastly overpowered him in their duel in Episode III, he won through superior tactics) on equal terms and almost killed him, and is so badass that he becomes the blueprint for an entire army. He also kills a Jedi — a distracted Jedi, but still a Jedi — with a blaster pistol. In a lovely subversion of the trope however, when he tries to fight Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson as a Jedi), he gets decapitated, and Windu doesn't even spare him a second glance.
- Boba Fett is shown to be even more a badass than his father in EU material, extremely physically strong (and able to handle a lightsaber much like a Jedi!) and fighting Mace Windu to a standstill in a novel. It could be assumed that if Boba fought Obi-Wan in the same manner his father did, Obi-Wan would not have been so lucky.
- In one of the comics, Boba Fett fights Darth Vader over the severed head of a seer and though he is rather badly outclassed (and he knows it), he still is able to, by fighting smart, survive and even make a profit.
- In the video game Battlefront 2's Hero Assault, the only characters without lightsabers who can still score plenty of kills are the two Fetts - on a battlefield loaded almost exclusively with Jedi.
- The Mandalorians in general are known for being Jedi killers during the many wars that dealt with Force-users.
- The protagonist in Gattaca, who does not have the genetics to compete on a purely physical level with rival Gattaca Babies. However, through willpower, gumption, moxie, grit, determination, guts, balls, and no small amount of chutzpah, he shows himself better able to achieve his ambitions than the more naturally gifted.
Literature
- Cheradenine Zakalwe from Iain M Banks' Use of Weapons epitomises this trope. He gets a little less cocky about it after being decapitated, though.
- "Gentleman" Johnny Marcone in Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files. Managed to bring Chicago's organized crime under his (relatively organized) reign, and has gone to ground with the things that go bump in the night on multiple occasions. White Night ends with him becoming a recognized body in the supernatural community, able to defend his rights if any signatories to the Unseelie Accords infringe on them. There are twenty such bodies throughout the world, and Marcone's the only mortal. His biggest moment has to be when he was hung upside down and managed to kill a werewolf with a throwing knife. In the dark.
- On that note, Karrin Murphy from the same series. She's faced down rampaging werewolves, vampiric minions, and an army of ghouls, despite being a squishy mortal. It does help that she's an experienced cop and damn good at aikido, though.
- This editor believes Johnny Marcone qualifies as a Chessmaster, since he controls much of the plot in Death Masks (the bit that hasn't got Denarians in, at any rate) and successfully maneuvers his way into becoming said supernatural body, as well as hiring a Valkyrie.
- Charity Carpenter was once a practitioner of magic, but gave it up after Knight of the Cross Michael Carpenter rescued and married her. In Proven Guilty she takes on the Badass Normal (and Mama Bear) role in the team assembled to rescue her daughter Molly from Arctis Tor. She uses no magic, only the muscles and skills she has built up as her husband's armorer and sparring partner.
- Tavi in Jim Butcher's other series, Codex Alera. He is uniquely powerless in a world in which all humans can control elemental spirits called Furies, though he compensates for this near-crippling deficiency by becoming a courageous, insightful, empathetic, and generally badass leader. This may be a slight exaggeration of this trope, as while he is normal by our standards, in his world he is considered a (sub-normal) freak. By the end of the third book, it is explicitly stated in-story that he is far more capable than most people with great Fury-powers. And then he becomes a Badass Abnormal with the full furycraft ability of the First Lord.
- Carmela in Diane Duane's Young Wizards series seems to qualify, given that she destroys the Lone Power's body in Wizards at War.
- Geoffrey Spazmo from Ben Elton's Gridlock. Spastic, but smart and brave as a lion. Kills two professional assasins with a coffee maker and a bottle opener. Still dies in the end... sniffle...
- Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen has a number of these, with the assassin/warrior Kalam Mekhar being perhaps the most obvious.
- Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar series is chock-full of these, but usually the magic-users deal with The Affairs of Wizards and the normals deal with problems that swords can solve. Special mention, however, goes to Jimmy the Hand. He routinely takes on the plots and schemes of wizards and demons with nothing more than a quick blade, a quicker wit, and a lot of street-bred cynicism, before his Heroic Sacrifice when he destroys half the Serpent Queen's army by luring them into taking his home city and setting off a fuel-air explosion.
- Which was inspired by the exploits of a general named Guy du Bas-Tyra. One of his more famous exploits was leading a successful campaign against a larger empire whose army was thought to be the best in the world.
- Waylander from David Gemmell's Drenai books is the epitome of this trope. Despite being rather mediocre with a sword, his nerve, accuracy and ruthlessness (and a nifty double crossbow thing) mean he is the world's foremost assassin. In the later books he becomes known as "The Gray Man" (apparently one of the embodiments of death) and leads the resistance against a bloody demonic invasion despite being an octogenarian.
- Arguably three of the other recurring characters of the series (Druss the Slayer, Skilgannon the Damned and Talisman/Ulric) would easily qualify, as each one of them can only be described as a force of nature incarnate but as they, individually, at some point have received magical weapons/enchantments which have made them stronger than before.
- Although, in the cases of Druss and Skilgannon, they were massively badass both before the magical weapons and after they had put aside their weapons (Skilgannon), or taken a terrifying jaunt through hell that rid their weapon of its power (Druss).
- In Walter B. Gibson's novels about the Shadow, the Shadow relied on the techniques of Houdini (which Gibson had gotten the permission to use and write about from the estate of same) to rescue himself.
- Chase from Terry Goodkind's Sword Of Truth series has no magical ability, but can outfight pretty much anybody on the planet, and in the beginning of the series has a dayjob that involves him fighting demonic hounds that hunt by the sound of human hearts. He's mentioned as being "far tougher than he has any right to be", and carries enough weapons to equip a small army. Not surprisingly, his adopted daughter becomes a Little Miss Badass later in the series.
- Roran from The Inheritance Cycle. In a world where elves have the strength of ten men, dragons grow to the size of large hills, and magicians tear castles apart with their minds, Roran is armed with only his determination and a metal hammer. When his village becomes condemned by The Empire, he uses his potent charisma to convince his people to flee their homes and travel from the northern tip of Alagaesia to the sun-drenched country of Surda in the far south, avoiding Galbatorix's troops all the while. He joins the Varden, kills the Twins (two extremely powerful magicians) with his hammer, kills 193 men in one go, survives being given 50 lashes to the back by Nasuada for insubordination and is up and fighting again a few days later, journeys across Alagaesia to rescue his kidnapped girlfriend from the mountain lair Helgrind, wrestles a battle-crazed urgal to the ground until the beast surrenders and acknowledges Roran as the stronger, and rises his way up to a commander in the Varden after only a couple of months of service. And he does this all without any magic whatsoever. Yeah, Eragon doesn't look so impressive next to that, does he?
- Lamp Shaded by Katrina's, Roran's love who he marries in Brisingr, who remarks that the feats Roran accomplished without magic require greater courage than anyone else in Alagaesia has.
- In C.S.Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia the two Pevensie brothers (Edmund and Peter) are subtly shown to be examples of this trope. Peter fights Jadis the White Witch hand-to-hand without instantly dying (despite the fact she is immortal, ageless and can tear iron bars "like barley sugar"). Edmund is given a "stunning blow" across the face by the same Jadis and his reaction is to feel sorry for someone else. He also fights his way through "three ogres" to reach Jadis and break her wand. Not bad for two pre-teens.
- Perry Moore's Hero has Major Might and Dark Hero.
- From Garth Nix's The Old Kingdom series, we have Touchstone, and in the novelette, Nicholas Sayre. Both take on a variety of supernatural entities and (at least in Touchstone's case) come out on top.
- Nick more than Touchstone, as the former is a teenage prep-school student with minimal knowledge of Charter Magic and the latter is a trained swordsman and Charter Mage on top of being a genuine berserker. He's only "normal" compared to Sabriel, who is pretty much the one person actually qualified to handle those threats.
- Considering that people not just in the magical Old Kingdom, but also in the 'magic-free' Ancelstierre can learn to be Charter Mages, that attribute isn't really abnormal. Nor is swordsmanship. Compared to the Abhorsen, the Necromancers, and the Clayr, all of whom have unique (and in the case of the necromancers inhuman) abilities, not to mention the Dead and Wild Magic entities, Touchstone's abilities are pretty normal. There's no doubt that Nick is a much better example, though.
- In the novella, Nick is not in fact normal. While he behaves like one, his blood is full of Free Magic, which seems to interact with the Charter in rather odd ways. Somebody hit him with a powerful binding spell while he was crossing the Perimeter, and all it did was make him feel a little better.
- Keladry of Mindelan, the only one of Tamora Pierce's primary protagonists without magical powers. Liam Ironarm, the Shang Dragon, also counts, although he's not a main character.
- Many of the non-magical human characters in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series would qualify as a Badass Normal or as having a Charles Atlas Superpower, including Captain Carrot, Cohen the Barbarian, and many others.
- Sam Vimes mostly deals with petty crooks, thieves, murderers and politicians (but I repeat myself) but in The Fifth Elephant he was put in a death race with a pack of werewolves who had already been shown to be easily capable of taking out highly trained spies and assassins, beat their leader and then didn't make a Bond One Liner (More Awesome In Context).
- Sam Vimes has a laundry list of badass accomplishments, from "killing a werewolf with his bare hands" to preventing two major wars (so far). Check out the quote about him on the Remember When You Blew Up A Sun page.
- Kaycee in Magellan aspires to be a Badass Normal in a world of Super Heroes.
- The Black Company.
- Tisiphone (and her late partner Katrina) from S.M. Stirling's Changed World series. They're ninja-style spies and assassins, but portrayed as being normal humans whose only abilities come from intensive training. Occasionally they skirt the edge of Charles Atlas Superpower, but never quite slip over.
- Alexander Storm from the Deathstalker series. He was one of the few characters not either a cyborg, super-gladiator in disguise, or afflicted by an ancient alien maze, and yet he still managed to survive half the fights that hit him, right up until his Face Heel Turn.
- Edward from the Anita Blake series has no superpowers whatsoever and regularly goes up against vampires and shapeshifters for money and at one point against a creature that turns people into pulp for no apparent reason. Similarly, the members of RPIT, most notably Dolph and Zerbrowski, are at least acknowledged and often feared by members of the supernatural community.
- Earth-born Hari Michaelson in Matthew Stover's The Acts Of Caine is, in his Caine persona, a superstar in a D&D-inspired parallel universe. He goes up against the most brutal warriors of a fighting species, thaumaturgists, humans channelling the powers of their gods, and, well, gods. He beats them all through a combination of training, a few semi-magickal meditative disciplines, his knives, and, when he's physically incapable of anything else, extraordinary tactical ability and a healthy dose of badassery.
- Several in Quantum Prophecy inluding Batman Expy Solomon Cord and most notably Razor, teenage delinquent, gadgeteergenius and by book 3 defacto leader of the New Heroes.
- In book three Stephenie Cord also becomes a badass normal
- Dioxin also becomes a badass normal after he loses his powers.
- At least half of The Lonely Winds apply to this trope.
- Rod Gallowglass (A.K.A.Rodney [too many middle names to list] D'Armand)is the Badass Normal in Christopher Stasheff's Warlock of Gramaraye books, or at least until around the end of the third book. In A World where everyone is at the very least a latent telepath, a few thousand people are full-blown, teleporting, levitating, telekenetic, you-name-it-it's-there telepaths. All he has is an advanced knowledge of Science and History, an epileptic robotic horse, training in all types of weapons, and an 8th degree black belt. He still manages to fulfill his role as The Chessmaster in guiding the planet towards democracy, plus raise the four most powerful telepaths to be born... ever. Even after he discovers his own "witch-powers" he prefers to rely on the skills he learned beforehand.
- Later in the series, Yorick becomes the Badass Normal. Specifically in The Warlock is Wandering. Isn't it amazing how well a Neanderthal, who can't manipulate symbols due to a lack of prefrontal lobes, can manipulate the rules and people around him?
- Even later, in the semi-spin-off Wizard series, Magnus Gallowglass takes on a partner, Dirk Dulaine, who is decidedly a Badass Normal. Hell, you don't get much more "normal" than Dirk's genetics. His entire ancestry comes from maybe 100 individual people, who were then cloned. A few centuries later, and the servant population bears a striking resemblence to each other.
- The Seekers Of Truth have a couple. Trigger uses technology and an eagle eye, and Grizzly has lived in the woods for the last twenty-five years honing his body and his instincts, until he can read the sounds of every animal in his woods.
- As explained on the relevant page, the pilots of Rogue and Wraith squadrons. In a galaxy where Jedi and trained commandos struggle, pilots still hold their own. Wedge Antilles might not be as physics-defying as a Force-Sensitive pilot, but he's counted with them as the best pilot alive, and is at the very least notable for being the only person to survive both attacks on a Death Star.
- Hugh the Hand from the Deathgate Cycle. After being forcibly resurrected and not being able to kill himself again, he manages to hold his own in The Labyrinth, an insane twisted prison of magic.
- Samwise Gamgee. A gardener at the beginning of the book. By the end of the trilogy... well, I know it's the film, but Shelob's lair is his CMOA. I mean, seriously. Sauron and Morgoth had trouble containing Shelob and Ungoliant, all four being effectively gods/"angels", but Sam goes and punches out Cthulhu.
- In the Young Wizards series, Kit's sister is definitely badass normal when she manages to not only make an intergalactic voyage, chat with Aliens, learn The Speech, and wound the series antagonist in his plan of the week in Wizards at War, but she does so without any skill in wizardry at all, just by hanging out with Kit and Juanita.
- In the same series, Juanita's mother sends the series antagonist back despite having no wizardry powers... all she just does is because it's inside her mind, give him 'all the pain she experienced in her life. This includes childbirth. Too bad you didn't get to see her pwn him again...
- Repairman Jack goes against things straight out of Lovecraft's worst nightmare with little more than healthy dose of righteous anger, resourcefulness and enough firepower to singlehandedly wage war on a small country. The results aren't pretty but awesome all the same.
- A slightly skewed version is Bahzell Bahnakson in David Weber's War God series. Among his own people, Bahzell is a Badass Normal at the beginning of the books. He is chosen by the God of War to be a Champion because of this.
- Roland in The Dark Tower. Pretty much the whole Ka-tet become Badass Normal by the end of the book including Oy, the Team Pet.
- In Bionicle, Vezon, although never actually fighting, manages to remain a main character, not dead, unbelievably unscathed after being captured by the worst torture master in the MU (with the building collapsing), and unmutated by Pit Mutagen, and all without powers! And plus he's got practically no mind, so he might even be considered handicapped...
- And Mazeka, minus the handicap.
Live Action TV
- On Angel, Gunn is the epitome of the Badass Normal in the first four seasons. He's the only one who's received no special training, isn't a centuries-old demon or magically empowered in some other way. He's been fighting vampires since he was fourteen and, in the fourth-season episode "Players," he took out six Asian warrior monk-types without getting hit once.
- Gunn and the street-gang members he used to lead fought vampires with more success and less casualties, using improvised melee weapons, than the US government's secret black-ops demon-fighting organization was able to manage even using chemically-augmented super-soldiers and energy weapons. Admittedly, the government wasn't just hunting, but studying...
- Halfway into the second season (exhibiting signs as early as the Season 1 episode "The Ring") Wesley started to evoke some measure of usefulness besides being The Smart Guy and hit his stride in the third season while growing a Perma Stubble. Wesley may have had special Watcher training, but he apparently wasn't good at it, or whoever trained him sucked. It's a pretty big acheivement to go from being the male Distressed Damsel, to being a Badass Normal. By the fifth season he would shrug off almost anything short of Angel's level.
- Survive long enough near a main character in a Joss Whedon show and it starts to rub off. Would your high school graduating class have engaged an army of vampires in close range combat?
- Noah Bennet in Heroes. He has defeated superpowered people simply by knowing how they work and going around them. He thought in Japanese to counteract telepath Matt Parkman's mind reading, arranged an escape from a prison meant to contain superpowered people, and kept an electrically-powered super under control by soaking her in water. In one of the online comics available, he defeats a man who can destroy things with his hand by grabbing him by the wrist and beating him unconscious with a baseball bat. Why not shoot him? It was inconvenient to figure out a way to go get his gun which was near his family.
- During the two-parter Eclipse coupling, he became the most powerful character in the show after all the others lost their powers. Suffice to say quick wits, extensive knowledge of powered individuals and a handgun are all he needs!
- Season Five seems to be topping the sundae that is Bennet's badassness. Gut sliced up by speedster assassin? Silly Edgar, you can't kill Noah Bennet. Bennet's up and walking again by the end of the week. He gets his revenge in "Let It Bleed", locking Edgar in an industrial freezer for an indefinite amount of time, then tying him to a chair and spending several hours practicing the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique on him.
- Pretty much the entire Bennet family is pretty Bad Ass (even Claire, but she is superpowered), considering Sandra goes with her daughter on a rescue mission to save Meredith and Lyle goes after Ted with a baseball bat and throws a bucket of water on Elle, in the style of dear old dad.
- Ando, Hiro's best friend and somewhat-sidekick with absolutely no powers whatsoever. In the first three volumes at least. "Somewhat-sidekick" because Ando's common sense and steadfast loyalty to his geeky, Idiot Ball carrying buddy has a tendency to save the day more often than any superpower.
- Volume 4 gives us Emile Danko, a veteran soldier who, while he does occasionally need some help from the likes of Noah or Sylar due to his inexperience at dealing with superpowered people, proves to be a very dangerous adversary due simply to his cunning and creativity (like framing a hero as a suicide bomber). You can basically call him the Anti-Bennet, due to having the same amount of badassness, but far looser moral standards.
- Peter Petrelli in Season 3 when he lost his powers. He still managed to get into Pine Hearst, and would have killed his Too Powerful To Live father.
- Xena Warrior Princess, who nearly killed Hercules in Hercules The Legendary Journeys before her Heel Face Turn and starting her own series. She's taken down monsters, rival warriors and even gods such as Ares. While Hercules is a demi-god and thus able to see gods who are watching while invisible, Xena can just tell. All this, and she's just a mortal (though fan speculation on her ancestry is rampant). Arguably qualifies for Charles Atlas Superpower instead however, as even in the nature of the series she is probably just a bit *too* good.
- Autolycus from the same verse qualifies however.
- Gabrielle too. She Took A Level In Badass from being a village girl who dreams of adventure to taking Xena's place in the series finale, with no suspect ancestry.
- Iolaus too. The man hangs out with Hercules and regularly aids him in combat, and saves his ass more than a couple times.
- While the Doctor of Doctor Who is not quite normal, many of his companions fall into this category, particularly Leela, Jamie, Barbara, Ian, Martha and Jack (at least before the whole "immortal" thing).
- Ace can arguably lead the pack of the companions, being of a quick temper and always carrying with her a backpack full of homemade explosive charges that she's not afraid to use.
- From "The Next Doctor" Jackson Lake. An amnesiac Victorian gentleman who believes himself to be the Doctor and does very well, to the point of saving the real Doctor from Cybermen with a hastily improvised weapon at least twice.
- Davros. The man is a blind cripple with one working arm, but his enormous intellect, horrific cruelty, and sheer tenacity had the fandom calling him the Doctor's greatest enemy after his first appearance.
- In Eureka, Sheriff Carter is one of the few people in town that isn't a super genius, he also winds up always being the one that solves the problem of the week.
- In Supernatural Dean hunts supernatural creatures with nothing but holy water, a shotgun full of salt, and maybe some Latin. He doesn't have his brother's psychic powers, but he can still hold his own against the monster of the week whether it's a ghost, demon, or shtriga.
- Plus, he slept with an angel. Score one for the human.
- Semi-lampshaded in Power Rangers Operation Overdrive for the series' 15th anniversary Reunion Show. Four recent rangers with civilian form-only extra powers were teamed up with Adam from season two. After a straight martial arts fight scene, Adam commented, "It may be old school, but it gets the job done." Considering how the fandom has complained about civilian powers and the fact that the actor's face was always visible (to assure the audience that no stunt double was being used), probably overlaps with Fanservice.
- Most every ranger has some badassitude without their powers, showing them fight the mooks of the season is supposed to help the transition to the Super Sentai costume footage.
- Dr. K took down the current dragon by playing the violin. Twice.
- Honourable mentions go to Takaoka Eiji from Go Go Sentai Boukenger. Before he becomes BoukenSilver, he is so badass that in his human form he can beat up two Ashu demons, whom the five other Boukengers together, in their Ranger form, were unable to defeat.
- Kung Lao, Siro, and Taja, the protagonists of Mortal Kombat: Conquest, are all ordinary human beings who regularly face off against supernatural opponents who can shoot ice, throw fire, teleport, devour souls, re-animate the dead, etc. Not only do they stand toe to toe against these enemies but they usually win. In one episode Tsang Tsung, Kung Lao's primary rival, destroys an entire military encampment with his powers because he was just that pissed. Had he thought of doing that when he faced Kung Lao in Mortal Kombat, Earth Realm would have been doomed before the series even began.
- When Quan Chi and Kung Lao first fought, Quan Chi attempted to use his sorcery but was immediately stopped by Raiden in the name of "a fair fight."
- Farscape's John Crichton easily applies as a Badass Normal, if only because of the fact that he's a plain-jane human stuck amongst god-knows-how-many different alien species - each of which are vastly superior in some form or another - if not completely superior all together. This is lampshaded brilliantly in the season 2 episode "Crackers Don't Matter", where John's inferior biology actually allows him to save the crew... albeit while stark raving mad.
- In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xander is this when he isn't the Butt Monkey. This is a guy with no powers or training who went toe-to-toe with Angelus- and made him back down.
- Of all the villains Buffy's faced, one came closer than all of them to breaking her mentally and emotionally. Warren Mears. A geek who lives in his mom's basement.
- Though there are two qualifiers: A) he more capitalized on Buffy's pre-existing problems, B) If the Buffy RPG is to be considered a reliable source, then superscience is an unconscious manifestation of magic and therefore disqualifies him.
- Okay, you're like those people who say Batman's defeat of Superman in The Dark Knight Returns doesn't count because he had kryptonite in his gloves.
- Ironically, Clark Kent on Smallville becomes this whenever he loses his powers, especially in the later seasons. In the season 9 episode Savior, a woman negates his powers, then attacks him with a katana, and he kicks her ass.
Manga & Anime
- Reiji Takayama from Witch Blade. Stony resolve in the face of a magicially overpowered Ax Crazy Psycho Lesbian with an Artifactof Doom is impressive, but what seals it is that his only words to his assistant in regards to whether they should help The Hero Masane Amaha, or run, were this: "BACK HER UP!!!" He then proceeds to pull out a shotgun and blast away, even managing an almost Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu, despite being massively overpowered. Was damn near raped at the same time, but merely stared impassively at the crazy bitch, as if daring her to actually finish the job. Later, he commands an army barely a fraction the size of the force he's fighting and manages to waste a full eighth of an enemy mere mortals should have had a bitch of time even scratching, with weaponry that was unreliable at best.
- His assistant, Hiroki Segawa, despite being The Renfield incarnate, stands his ground with little more than a PISTOL and balls the size of small planets, especially considering said nutcase he was fighting could have killed him effortlessly, also qualifies.
- The few characters of One Piece without devil fruit powers are that. Mainly the strawhats, Zoro, Sanji, Nami and even Usopp, as they beat the crap out of elite fighters with sometimes nothing more than a leg (which is mysteriously burning, at least).
- Sanji and Zoro are proud owners of Charles Atlas Superpowers. Ussop's durability is easily superhuman, but otherwise he's nothing special, getting by on ingenuity and smarts rather than just hitting his opponents till they stop getting up. Nami likewise possesses no notable physical abilities (not counting the Most Common Superpower), relying on her Clima-Tact weapon to see her through battles with massively powerful superhumans.
- Vivi didn't seem all that impressive next to the Strawhat crew, but she did make it to a single-digit agent in Baroque Works, armed only with sharp pieces of jewelry on lengths of string...and probably undersold her abilities, too.
- Hugue de Watteau from Trinity Blood is characterized as being the only ordinary human in the main cast who can stand his ground and actually persevere in a fight against vampires, a proficiency stemming only from extreme training and fitness and reflexes honed to perfection.
- Gareki from Karneval is one; his sharpshooting skills are well-honed and exceedingly better than a top fighter of their nation's ultimate defense organization, Circus. Even when he acknowledges that his abilities are far inferior to that of those who own a Circus I.D., he is able to hold his own with a gun (that he's not actually allowed to have on him) next to the said top fighter in a fight against two psychos.
- Jounouchi/Joey from Yu-Gi-Oh!. He's the only duelist in the core cast without a mystical Millennium item or reincarnation, but is still a pretty skilled player, regardless of what Kaiba thinks. (The only time he had a MacGuffin on his side would be during the Atlantis/Doma filler arc.) He's also considered the third best player in the entire world by GX. He would likely have defeated the Big Bad during the Battle City Arc if not for his injuries.
- That, and whereas the other prominent duelists are loaded with powerful cards, especially Kaiba, Joey's deck, ostensibly due to him being much newer to the game and a lot poorer for one, is littered with weak cards, along with chance-based cards whose effects can even things out when he gets lucky with the result. (He does get stronger cards throughout the series, most notably Jinzo.) As a result, he really has to fight for his victories, though fortunately for himself, he's one of the most driven duelists in the entire series.
- Little Yugi, when up against Yami/Atemu in the Ceremonial Duel, would be another. Whereas the latter is locked and loaded with all three Egyptian god cards and by this point the ability to will his topdecks with his Millennium powers, the non-magical Yugi takes him and his gods down with much weaker monsters augmented by strategic use of spells and traps, and in spite of Yami's ability to select what he draws every turn, Yugi manages to stay one step ahead, culminating in his calling out Yami's final strategy of revive Osiris. (Added in the anime version was Kaiba's presence, where he offers Yugi to choose among his rarest and strongest cards for help against Yugi, but Yugi chooses to rely on his own cards. Not only that, he takes down all three god cards at once!)
- Crow from Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds was arguably badass right from his introduction. However, his recent defeat of a Dark Signer (even when faced with a Jibakushin), despite not being a Signer himself, proves that he is definitely qualified for this trope. He also has the series's only Riding Duel First-Turn Win under his belt, and has survived a day and a half inside an old fridge (though the latter might just be Fridge Logic).
- Nenene Sumiragawa from the Read Or Die TV series is one of the only normal humans in the series. However, she is the strongest-willed, and dealing with her leads to the fall of not one, but two Ancient Conspiracies. It should be noted that, as a popular and talented author in the world of the series, her ability to write is itself something of a "superpower".
- In both the OVA and TV series, Drake Anderson is able to defeat several superpowered beings using only his army training and machinery.
- Mireille Bouquet is one of the best assassins in the world, but compared to the rest of the cast of Noir is mundane. However, her refusal to bend ultimately brings down an Ancient Conspiracy (or at least, one branch of it).
- Natsuko Aki in Re: Cutey Honey inspires Cutey Honey to fight, after laying siege to a villain's hideout with just the artillery on her back and sheer guts.
- Souichirou Kuzuki from Fate Stay Night is a normal man with no knowledge of the supernatural world and no magical abilities whatsoever, who still participates in the Holy Grail War. His position with his Servant is reversed, in that he fights while his Servant supports him with spells. With an enchantment on his fists and his own unconventional martial arts style, he manages to temporarily overwhelm Saber, the best close-range fighter, and rips out Rider's throat during his most prominent route.
- Servant Assassin is a Badass Normal by the standards of the Servants. He has no famous name or legend and no Noble Phantasm. He never defeated armies or monsters (his 'legend' only consists of him losing to Miyamoto Musashi), knows no magic and has no beasts, armies or anything apart from his trusty no-dachi and his own finely-honed skill to call upon. Furthermore he turns out to be the result of a forbidden summon; he isn't a true heroic spirit at all, just the spirit of some nameless samurai called upon to fill the role of Sasaki Kojirou, who never existed here. He still manages to repel and almost defeat Saber twice and is sufficiently skilled to unnerve Lancer, and knows a sword technique on the level of an anti-personal Noble Phantasm.
- And Kotomine Kirei of all people. Technically, he is a mage and does some have exorcist powers. How are they used? He burns out his Magic Crest healing Sakura because it's the only magic he can do - (irony!). In the second of the three major fights he has in the game, he pins a Servant to a tree with blessed swords, and then grinds Zouken Matou's skull into dust with his bare fists while exorcising him, leaving his soul trapped in a tiny worm lodged in Sakura's heart. Granted, Fate/Stay Night is a universe where people can run at fifty kilometers per hour if they train hard enough, but he's still fighting at the limit of normal unbuffed human capability in the modern age. Incidentally, in the past, some people could swing swords and break the sound barrier.
- Kiyone in the Tenchi Muyo Tenchiverse timeline had none of the exotic magical or Sufficiently Advanced powers enjoyed by most of the main cast, or even her partner Mihoshi's consistently extraordinary luck, but still managed to at least register on their scale thanks to great skills with her array of high-tech weapons and gadgets.
- The samurai in Samurai 7, save for the cyborg, are all Badass Normal, taking on massive cyborgs and even levitating warships, armed with just swords.
- That depends heavily on how you define "normal." Those guys deflect energy cannon blasts and cut entire starships in half with those swords.
- Nicholas D Wolfwood of Trigun. At least in the anime, he was basically just a regular if not well trained guy with a really big gun. Despite this he's able to go head to head with large groups of angry thugs, a killer robot and was at least Vash's equal in a quick draw tournament.
- This is clarified a bit in the manga. Chapel raised Wolfwood on some steroid-like chemicals that made him incredibly strong with lightning fast reflexes, much like Vash. Unfortunately, the drug did a number on his pituitary and caused him to age rapidly. He's a teenager, but looks to be in his thirties. Actually, given that Chapel lets it slip that Wolfwood is 17 in the anime and his childhood is still kept pretty secret, the implication is that his backstory is the same in both versions: it's just not revealed in the TV show. You have to read the manga if you want to know all the details.
- Integra Hellsing is fast and smart enough to hold off superhuman foes like Anderson and Nazi vampires attacking from the front despite being a fully un-powered human.
- Not to mention shooting a perfect cross of blessed silver bullets into the forehead of a moving vampire. With a Walther PPK. At 20 yards. In a crowded conference room.
- And don't get me started on Walter...
- Captain Pickman, a minor character only featured in the TV anime and not until the very last episodes, was the last of the Hellsing Redshirts when they were led into an trap at the Tower of London. Despite every single other Redshirt having been violently killed, he continued to fight at the side of Alucard with surprising success until a enemy offscreen mortally wounds him, and requests Alucard to kill him so he would die as a human.
- Sir Penwood in the manga is initially one of the more useless knights that Integra has to deal with, being heavily biased against the organization's way of functioning. However, he gets one hell of an awesome ending.
- And how have we gotten this far without mentioning Pip? Or Heinkel (at least before the end of the series) and Yumie?
- Genjyo Sanzo in Saiyuki, while being a normal human, manages to keep up with and, if anything, outstrip his magical youkai companions' fighting skills.
- Togusa from Ghost in the Shell is noted several times as being the only member of Section 9 who is not heavily cyberized. Despite this, he is a crack shot with his revolver, survives battles with several cyborgs, and manages to get critical data on the Laughing Man Case, among others.
- Major General Olivier Milla Armstrong in the Fullmetal Alchemist manga is the older sister of Alex Louis Armstrong. She's also a sword-wielding maniac who terrifies the Elric brothers. Even though she has no alchemic abilities, and relies only on her sword, she has put more fear in them than the Homonculi, Scar, and Father combined.
- And her whole garrison. Who recently did most of the work of taking over the country.
- Lt. Colonel Hughes is also badass normal to a particular degree, wielding push knives with deadly skill and holding his own against two homunculi until a third one kills him.
- And Mustang's men. Practically, almost everyone in the military who isn't alchemist or chimera is badass normal.
- Sig proves that his muscles isn't just for show in the last arc when he kills Sloth alongside Alex Louis by throwing him on a spike.
- Ein and the adult version of Bat from Fist Of The North Star. While they don't have same martial arts training as Kenshiro and other martial artists in the series, they're capable on holding their own against the bad guys. The two of them working together managed to punch an entire fortress filled with goons to death.
- Some of the bad guys, like Jackal, may qualify for this trope as well.
- Kai, David, and Lewis from Blood+ could fit the bill, seeing as they are ordinary humans who regularly wade into battle with powerful Chiropterans armed only with simple firearms (which the series establishes as being next-to-useless against them), and emerge almost unscathed every time. Out of all them, Lewis and Kai probably emphasize the "normal" aspect the most, since one is a fat, awkward slob, and the other is an ordinary teenage boy. David definitely fits the "badass" part, since he survives being shot, getting slashed by monsters, and jumping out of a helicopter moments before it exploded, despite requiring realistic medical treatment in each case, and when he infiltrated a secret research facility and found himself surrounded by armed guards, he escaped by grabbing a hostage and threatening to kill him with a ballpoint pen.
- Limelda Jorg in Madlax is an ordinary military officer positioned as The Rival to the eponymous Extraordinarily Empowered Girl, who is Cursed With Awesome, Immune To Bullets, sports Gun Kata, and stacks up Theme Music Power Ups like no tomorrow. That Limelda survives the show where Anyone Can Die also speaks a lot about her skills.
- Daisuke Ido from GUNNM is likely the only Hunter-Warrior in the Scrapyard who is not a cyborg.
- Guts from Berserk is definitely a HEAVY contender. This man has taken enough punishment to kill the entire Mortal Kombat cast several times over, but just keeps on living. It's not often that even a Badass Normal can cut off his own arm and keep fighting afterwards.
- Colonel Shikishima from Akira. While perhaps more impressive overall in the manga, surviving not one but two apocalypses, the film's image of him facing down a rapidly mutating Tetsuo with nothing but a .45 Automatic and a grunted "Come on!" for this editor exemplifies the trope.
- Kaneda himself is another example. Anyone who can face down a superpowered psychic psychopath with nothing but a laser rifle without getting splattered definitely qualifies.
- In a school inhabited by super-powered Magical Girls, Haruka Suzushiro from Mai-HiME counts, if only for the fact that as the head of Fuuka Academy's Executive Committee, she has a whole legion of students at her direct command, and her utter refusal to take "no" for an answer even when faced with death after Yukino's CHILD is instantly destroyed by a freshly Face Heel Turned Shizuru, whom she chewed out and gave a very nasty headbutt just before she disappeared.
- The most exemplary moment of Haruka's Badass Normal tendencies is during the Searrs invasion where she uses her brute strength to take out a pair of fully armed soldiers...and also kicking one of their tanks and somehow not breaking her foot. Wow.
- While several of the characters in Baccano! are immortal beings that have drank the elixir of life, many of the most amazing fights and other feats are performed by completely normal humans such as Claire Stanfield, Chane Laforet, Jacuzzi Splot, and Ladd Russo.
- It's worth pointing out, however, that Ladd is Ax Crazy and Claire thinks he is immortal.
- In the light novels, Claire takes this trope even further - he manages to best a vampire in a fight. The author of the novels has even stated that, if such a situation were to come up, Claire would be able to win against all of the many characters in the series with little effort; the reason the author plans to avoid such a fight is simply because should Claire be pitted against the rest of the cast, the story would come to a swift and uninteresting end. What's more, at the age of 90, Claire - still a mortal - continues his eccentric activities, traveling around the world and locating treasures merely to impress Chane.
- The light novels themselves note that the only character that might match up against Claire in a fight is Ronnie Suchiart. To clarify, the resident demon/eldritch abomination has trouble fighting Claire Stanfield.
- In Mahou Sensei Negima, most of the characters at the least use some kind of given magic or Ki. But some of them are at least able to touch ground with the more powerful people. Asakura showed sly cleverness - enough to manipulate anyone in the class - long before she got her spying device pactio weapon. Kuu Fei in particular was only recently able to properly utilize Ki, and even then hold her own against the more magically capable opponents. The mercenary Gunslinger Mana might also count. Although she rarely gets placed in a situation where it would become applicable due to her "clueless Muggle" status, Ayaka also proved herself capable of holding her own in battle during the school trip arc. Anti Villain Chao admitted early on that as a fighter she's not all that strong, making this her sole ability to survive high damage levels against powered opponents.
- Rosette from the Chrono Crusade manga is the only one in her group that doesn't have any magical or spiritual energy, just some special bullets, but she's still easily the biggest badass of her group. She's defeated countless demons with powers that make them much stronger than her, and in the final volume even shoots the horn on her brother's head, even though those horns give him superhuman speed and strength and the ability to stop time. All this while a demon is draining away her soul to supply his power. Sadly, this isn't the case in the anime.
- Yoko of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. While she has access to Spiral Energy like all humans, it's nothing compared to the likes of Kamina, Simon or Kittan, but with her trusty BFG she remains a formidable presence in the Dai-Gurren Brigade from the very beginning, and is the only character in the series to have destroyed Ganmen without one of her own.
- In the anime version of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, Nagisa, despite being a Dogged Nice Guy with little to no knowledge of the Masquerade, has a few moments of his own... like resisting a spell to immobilize humans, attacking the person responsible and destroying the item he was using to do it, despite being one of the only two normals in the entire cast, simply because Hanon was in pain.
- The Gundam multiverse is a difficult issue, as it depends on the universe, what you consider a super power. UC would go with psychic Newtypes and SEED with coordinators, G-verse is full of people with Charles Atlas Superpowers beating the crap out of others. Also in a mecha anime, you might consider fighting with a normal suit with or against way superior opponents a Badass Normal action. Examples (and also note that these characters also have to be directly compared to a newtype or coordinator, not just have them exist somewhere in that universe:
- Lunamaria Hawke of Gundam SEED Destiny was one for a while before she got chickified to hell and back again. While she is a Coordinator, she was never a SEED-user like the main characters and she remains one of the few characters in the franchise to go multiple rounds against a Gundam in a bog-standard Zaku and live to tell about it.
- Garrod Ran of After War Gundam X. A kid who Fell Into The Cockpit, he practically survives his first few battles only by way of his Humongous Mecha's Wave Motion Gun and The Power Of Love coming from Shrinking Violet Tiffa. After being stripped of the former thanks to a premature Mid Season Upgrade, he has to start building up his skills and becomes an excellent pilot in his own right.
- In a war were newtypes are the only ones getting a hit on the enemy, Zeta's Jerid Massa and Yazaan "the animal" are at least able to put up a fight with their opponents, though they hardly if ever succeed.
- ZZ is more difficult in the beginning, since much was just comedic and no Serious Business, but one person should be given credit: Masai, a young woman living in a desert, laying out some traps and fighting the whole Gundam team with an near ancient Gelgoog.
- MS IGLOO. Oliver May. Big Rang. Nuff said. To give you an idea, he was a newbie pilot with no experience who got inside a patched-up MA made of a Bigro attached to a battleship's fuselage, and completely stomped Fed forces all over A Baoa Qu, to the point they thought he was Char.
- The 00 series features this a lot in many characters.
- Graham Acre is the biggest of them, being the first character in the series to come close to taking down a Gundam in a straight fight. Had his fight with the Eins continued, he would have literally chopped it to pieces with the beam saber he jacked from the same unit.
- Ali Al Sarshes qualifies for the first part of the first season because he was able to at least put up a legitimate fight against Setsuna (but he loses due to Exia's sheer physical power). Subverted later on when he steals the Zwei and upgrades it into the Arche. After that he just becomes another Gundam Pilot.
- Setsuna F. Seiei at the beginning of the second season when he performs a personal intervention against the A-Laws. Although he nearly gets killed in the fight, it should be kept in mind that his Gundam was essentially a lost one since it was a makeshift repair of a 5 year old model using outdated technology. To add the icing on the cake, his weapon couldn't thrust because it had no point and the cutting edge was beaten to pieces. This carries over to the 00 later on because although the Gundam is technically a Bigger Stick, it was no bigger a stick than the average enemy suits since it could not go Trans-Am, at least not until the Trans-Am Raiser was equipped. Then that title goes to hell.
- Geronimo from Kinnikuman. In his first fight, he's just an ordinary person, but manages to not only survive getting crushed and stabbed in the torso, but destroy his opponent by screaming at him, only stopping to make his stopped heart start beating again by reaching into his own chest and massaging it. The fact that he's not even technically a superhero at this point makes this even more amazing. After becoming a superhero, though, he never wins another fight. Apparently, super powers make you weak.
- Gourry Gabriev of Slayers. In a show where practically every hero and villain worth their money can fly, cast devastating spells, and create force-fields, he is the idiot with the sword who somehow manages to hold his own. Sure it's the Sword of Light (at least until the end of Slayers Try), but still.
- While it's emphasized that usually only the characters smart enough to wear the Hunter suits are Genre Savvy enough to survive a game of Gantz, one of the facts that make Kurono such an utter Badass is his ability to not only survive playing without his suit (not by choice, he simply doesn't have access to it) but to thrive, regularly scoring more points than players wearing suits. That, combined with the time he killed almost an entire gang of vampire assassins with a homemade "sun gun", marks him out as the series ultimate Badass Normal.
- Kaze technically qualities as well, having killed a few raptors with his bare hands before he gets to the point of wearing his suit. Of course, like Kurono, the act of donning the aforementioned Hunter suits puts him well above the average Gantz participant.
- Gene Starwind of Outlaw Star can be seen as a Badass Normal. Certainly, he has some fancy tech and a space ship, but when his crew are made up of a ninja-esque assassin (capable of killing anything with a wooden sword), an alien catgirl who can turn into a beast form and is nigh-invincible already and his navigator is a bio-robot, it certainly makes the plain outlaw Gene look underwhelming.
- Furthering this is the fact that the most common enemies Gene runs into are Chinese pirates who use tao magic on a regular basis, while Gene has none of that (aside from his Castor gun, which is magic in an increasingly-rare gun form).
- And don't forget about Jim, who is a 13 year old kid (Gene himself only being about 17 in the series) who's only power is being brillant.
- Shimi of the Anten Seven is a grand example. Unlike his comrades, he doesn't use any special powers in combat but is no less deadly because of it. Before his showdown with Gene, he first fights Jim, Aisha, and Suzuka all at once using nothing but conventional weapons and beats all three of them within the span of a minute. He then proceeds to give Gene a thorough trouncing and probably would have killed him had he not decided that the only honorable way to finish his quarry was through a quick-draw shoot out. He lost this showdown due to a faulty pistol, but even being shot and then buried didn't stop him from surviving and digging himself out of his grave. Truly he is a manly man among normal men.
- Many people consider Kyon from Suzumiya Haruhi already in this trope (if you include the novels, that is), as he still kicks everyones ass without having any power at all. In the 4th novel, he courageously pwns the Data Overmind, threatening to use Haruhi to recreate the universe, should anything happen to Yuki Nagato. Pretty much Badass Normal, yeah.
- Li Meiling from Card Captor Sakura, who has no magical powers at all, but still helps to take down the cards, even beating one in a straight up fight. Tomoyo would count, but she always stays out of the fights.
- To fully get the picture on Meiling's Badass Normalness: Sakura is a Magical Girl. Syaoran is a pint-sized Bruce Lee Clone. Kerberos, Yue and Rubymoon are magic guardians. Meiling can't even see the Clow Cards properly... but she's still a Hot Blooded Cute Bruiser, and once she's even vital in capturing The Twins card: whereas Sakura fails to synch her attacks with Syaoran's own, Meiling does it perfectly.
- Kirin from 666 Satan (O-Parts Hunter in the states.) While most anyone in the series needs to either be an OPT, an angel, or a demon to be badass, all Kirin has is an ordinary sword. And yet he manages to regularily curb stomp humongous enemies that even the main characters have trouble with.
- Kallen Kouzuki from Code Geass is one of the few major characters without a Geass or some sort of inhuman skill, and yet she's arguably the best pilot in the series. She's able to pilot the Guren S.E.I.T.E.N. after its creator stated that even Suzaku shouldn't be able to, then narrowly defeats Suzaku in his own custom built Lancelot Albion, despite him using his "live on" command through all of their fight.
- Suzaku himself could also qualify at first, even though it verges on Charles Atlas Superpower at times (like kicking auto-tracking machine guns off ceilings).
- By following the above example, Lulu would have counted...at least until halfway through the first episode.
- The Obstinate Arrow task force from Scrapped Princess. Centuries ago, the Guardian Factor was seeded in human DNA to produce people with the strength and will to protect the Providence Breaker when she is born. None of these people are in the task force which confuses the hell out of Zefiris when they come to the Pacifica's rescue and join her side.
- Demon slayer Sango is InuYasha's resident Badass Normal. Of the main Five Man Band, she is the only one that doesn't have either demonic or spiritual power, instead relying purely on her enormous boomerang, extensive combat training, and nigh-encyclopedic knowledge about all manner of demons and their weakness. Sango is, notably, the second strongest combatant in the group, formidable enough to impress even Inuyasha himself.
- When Sango was suffering from mind control, Miroku was able to knock her out without using his supernatural abilities, but he was torn up pretty badly and Sango clearly wasn't going at full potential.
- Magari Kazuma from Nora will crush you with his brain, you low-class animal.
- While there is nothing particularly normal about his strength and speed, in a world where making multiple copies of yourself or shooting fireballs are the norm for battles, where people with special abilities gained from special bloodlines all but completely dominate the highest tiers and one of his best friends is the carrier for the ultimate evil, Rock Lee from Naruto still manages to hold his own using pure hand to hand combat, lacking the ability to use chakra to fuel jutsus.
- Mx0: Taiga. Despite having no magical powers whatsoever (and later on, a very limited Anti Magic power), he still manages to keep up the charade of being a genius wizard for an entire school year through sheer determination, wits, and bullshit.
- Temporarily, but still: during the Filler Arc of Sailor Moon R, Sailor Moon got her powers and memories reawakened in the first episode, but the other four Senshi still just think they're normal girls, because Luna and Sailor Moon wanted them to be able to live normal lives. When the Monster Of The Week shows up, they jump into the fight without any powers or knowledge of their nature. And while they aren't perfect, they do better than the solo Usagi.
- Hubb Lebowski of Wolf's Rain starts the series as an ineffectual wuss with allergies, but by the time the world ends he's evolved into a badass that keeps up with the main characters out of sheer bloody-minded determination even after his wife dies. His refusal to die results in one of the most cringe-inducing parts of the series, since he lets himself fall off the side of what looks like the tallest mountain of the world and still lives long enough after the impact to try and smoke a cigar.
- Psycho Busters has Kakeru, who, despite being the only one without psychic powers, is still able to kick ass by analyzing the flaws of each psychic and using it to his advantage. However, he may actually be a Badass Abnormal instead since he does have psychic powers sealed inside him, but he's unaware of it.
- Kenpachi Zaraki of Bleach. He's Captain of the 11th Company, who specialize in fighting. He is the only Captain to not have flashy powers like summoning an ice dragon, splitting his sword into invisible flying blades, conjuring up an inferno, or perfect hypnosis. Nope. Kenpachi doesn't have Bankai. He doesn't use Shikai or Kido. Heck, he doesn't even know his sword's name. All Kenpachi does is swinging his sword like a madman with no care for technique and his own ridiculous battle lust. And he made Captain, because he's just that damn good.
- His sword actually is in shikai, despite him not knowing it's name. This is because he has so much power that the sword can't be sealed, just like Ichigo.
- And when faced against the Arrancar, the other Captains unleashed a previously held back technique or ability to give them the edge. What did Kenpachi do? He held his sword two-handed.
- And when he wants to get serious? He removes his eyepatch, showing that he not only has he both his eyes but has been limiting himself just for the fun of it.
- Don't forget how Kenpachi got his job: he killed the last guy who had it.
- Chad was this before his powers manifested, through sheer brute strength and a bit of determination. He takes a falling steel beam to the back without much more than saying 'ow'. Later, after Rukia tells him where a hollow is (he still can't see them at this point) he uproots a telephone pole and uses it as a baseball bat.
- Claymore's Raki, post time-skip. Unlike the ladies, he has no Youki to increase his strength, no ability to sense demons beyond the regular five senses, and he certainly is a lot less durable... Not to mention he presumably heals at the same rate as a normal human. He's just a regular guy with seven years of sword training under his belt... And he easily kills the sort of youma that was giving Clare trouble at the beginning of the series.
- Captain Bravo from Busou Renkin would seem to fit this trope. Although he does have a kakugane, it is simply a metal shield, however he is able to destroy the ground and kill people with a single punch, pull out of a spinning kick in mid air, etc.
- Handsome or Looker in Pokemon. He first comes off as a slightly bizarre detective, but he dares to actually fight bad guys HIMSELF instead of relying on a Pokemon.
- If we are going to include Pokemon, one time bad guy Domino in "Mewtwo Returns!" movie held off and pushed a Scyther away herself among other things. She was one of the few human characters who did not have a pokemon and did things herself quite well, of course, she was Crazy Prepared.
- Looker and Domino both impressed in their worlds, but it's more common in the Pokemon Special manga for trainers to fight against Pokemon on their own, usually out of necessity. You could easily expect such out of Bruno and Chuck, but then there's Sapphire, who is first seen fighting a Seviper alongside her Torchic, and later has her Aron chew off a bit of a fountain before breaking it off herself to save another Pokemon trapped inside!
- Yumi of Saki. She entered the last match of the finals without any of the insane hacks most other characters have (Evil Eye, Photographic Memory, Stealth Mode, etc), so many people assumed that she'd get steamrollered since her table included Saki and Koromo, two characters with the supernatural luck of a god or demon. Instead, we have Yumi being Dangerously Genre Savvy enough to realize that supernatural stuff was going on, whereupon she not only stops Saki's third Rinshan Kaihou in a row by changing her strategy to rob Saki out of her kan even if she knows that the chance of that happening is usually a Million To One Chance, but she was also able to put a stop to Koromo's Winds Of Destiny Change powered winning streak by intentionally playing into Saki's hand before Koromo gets yet another Haitei Raoyue. Compare her to Kana, the other normal in the table, who in the meanwhile could only watch in horror as her points dwindled to nothingness in the face of the two Mahjong demons.
- If I recall correctly, Jubei of Ninja Scroll was a badass normal.
- Kodachi Kuno from Ranma 1/2 who is considered one of the most dangerous characters, despite being arguably the weakest character of the semi-regular cast as it comes to martial skill (even Akane is regularly able to divert her direct attacks). She combines levels of Manipulative Bastard, Fighting Dirty and Crazy Prepared. Often she makes use of her pet alligator and fellow St. Hebereke Gymnasts to wear down Ranma and others and keep them running around in her plots. Usually, she gets out of her storylines with little to no damage to herself and Ranma and Akane feel lucky to be alive.
- Rock from Black Lagoon. Sure, he's the Non Action Guy but his negotiation skills make him qualify. How good are they? He managed to engage Balalaika in a banter of Hannibal Lecture at gunpoint AND WON.
- Otoha of Karas is an interesting example, in that he is a Badass Normal compared to himself. He was originally a yakuza enforcer who liked killing gun-toting mooks with nothing but his sword, and was actually able to hold his own (if only barely) against a full-powered mikura. Then he turned into Karas, and anything he fought just kind of died.
- Hei from Darker Than Black was a Badass Normal until the end of Heaven's War, when he ended up with his sister's Contractor powers. As a teenager who had nothing more to go on than ninjutsu, he still managed to earn the nickname "The Black Reaper" from taking down so many Contractors.
- And now he's back to Badass Normal status after having lost his contractor powers.
- Let us not forget Kuwabara from Yu Yu Hakusho. Sure he may be a Human with super powers, but he is not the only Human with spirit powers, he just happens to be a lot more awesome then the rest of them. The only reason he is the weakest of the group is because Hiei, Kurama and Yusuke have all that demon power. Seriously, he keeps up really well, even in the Dark tournament where he is going against demons. And in the third season the bad guys want him to cut through the barrier between the worlds. A human, not the other people with all of the power to blow up everything. If that does not make him badass and still so much more normal than the other characters, I do not know what is.
Religion & Mythology
- Mythology is a place where one can't swing a metaphorical cat without hitting a half-god, quarter-god, or similar. For this, the non-god-blooded Beowulf deserves a spot here for (in the original poem):
- Swimming for six days in chain mail with a sword, killing nine sea monsters on the fifth night. (Note: This is his boast, so it is unconfirmed.)
- Tearing out Grendel's arm.
- Wielding a giant's sword.
- Standing up to a dragon's breath for a long time and, with a timely distraction, killing the dragon.
- Ajax from The Iliad. All of the other mighty warriors have either gods helping them or are nearly invincible to begin with. Not only does he never get help from any of the gods, he also singlehandedly holds off the Trojan army during their assault on the Greek ships. He also fights Hector to a draw, twice.
- Patroclus' badassery is sadly underappreciated. Not only is he completely mortal and not aided by any gods, but when he leads the Myrmidons into battle on Achilles' behalf, he beats the Trojans back from the ships, across the beach, and all the way to the walls of Troy, slaying several god-assisted heroes on the way, including Sarpedon, who is the son of goddamn Zeus (though that isn't an incredibly difficult achievement). And then, when he tries to take Troy itself, it takes the physical intervention of Apollo to slow him down long enough for two — two! — Trojan heroes to finally kill him. He even tells Hector, just before the man delivers the killing blow, "You are only my third slayer." And you thought he was just Achilles' boyfriend.
- Diomedes deserves special mention here, too. He's a normal human who manages to stab Ares — yes, the Greek God of War — in the stomach. Granted, he gets some special help from Athena on that one, but it takes major stones to attack the anthropomorphic manifestation of combat. Not to mention that he defeats Ajax twice, and bests both Hector and Aeneas on different occasions — the best combatants on the Trojan side. In addition, after he crushes Aeneas' hip with a boulder (which he hefted around like a feather pillow), Diomedes manages to wound Aphrodite, ANOTHER god — this time without divine intervention.
- It should be noted that at the time when the Iliad was written, Aeneas was not significant at all. It was only after Vergil used him as the hero of the Aeneid that the Trojan became competent.
- Odysseus doesn't do too badly either. While not quite as formidable in combat as the above Trojan War participants, he still owns a bow that only he is strong enough to use, and comes up with the Trojan Horse to win the war- and in his following adventures, displays amazing cunning and wit despite being only a normal human, opposed by as many gods as favoured.
Tabletop Games
- The Tanith First and Only from Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts line of Warhammer 40000 novels. They are an Imperial Guard regiment, which means they are individually the second weakest of all of the factions and alien races, as they lack advanced technology (compared to say, the Eldar or Necrons), psychic powers, and are only human. Yet that doesn't stop them from pulling off feats that would get other Imperial Guard units annihilated. Most of these feats consist of winning against vastly superior numbers of Chaos forces. Individual characters and squads have been known to kill all sorts of things that could easily wipe away enemies and units that could potentially destroy entire armies of Imperial Guardsmen all by themselves. These include, but are not limited to: numerous Chaos warlords, a Dark Eldar assassin, high-level psykers, a Chaos Dreadnought, and an entire squad of Chaos Space Marines.
- In fact, all Imperial Guardsmen of could be considered Badass to some degree or another. To paraphrase a line lost to the Data Vampires from the Badass page due to The Great Crash, "it takes some major cojones to stand up against a 20-foot overarmed demon with little more than flak armour, bayonets and the 40k equivalent of a peashooter."
- One also can't leave out Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!, in Sandy Mitchell's novels, who has managed to defeat everything from psykers and Greater Daemons of Slaanesh to Necron warriors, Dark Eldar Reavers, an Ork Warboss, Khornate Berserkers, and Tyranid Hive Tyrants, Broodlords, and Genestealers, along with countless mooks and minions of all of the above.
- He does generally outwit them first, and his ultimate goal is to not be fighting at all; he just fights with the desperation of a cornered rat.
- His motives don't change the fact that several of those victories (an Ork Warboss, a great many Genestealers, two and a half Khornate Berserkers (one was killed by Jurgen with his trusty meltagun, but Cain still fought it to a stand still) and the Greater Daemon of Slannesh) were in single combat and all he had was a laspistol and chainsword. He's also taken on at least one Inquisitor and managed to live long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
- He's described by Vail to be one of the best marksmen and duelists she's ever known. Coming from an Inquisitor, that's extremely high praise.
- Lets not forget Commissar Yarrick, a perfectly human man who had his arm torn off by a massive Ork warlord and responded by tearing off said Ork's own cyborg arm, attaching it to himself, killing the hell out of the Ork and leading his army to victory before allowing himself to pass out. And he's only got harder since then.
- Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka considers Yarrick to be a Worthy Opponent. As in, the largest and most influential Ork in the entire galaxy who has personally led two of the largest and most destructive Ork WAAAGH!s in Imperial history considers a "skwishy humie" to be as good as him. That, ladies and gentlemen, is this trope.
- In the related video game, La'Kais probably qualifies as well. Sure he's an alien, but he's a Tau, which means he's shorter lived and physically weaker than even the average human. And yet, according to the One Man Army page, on his first day of live fire combat, he personally killed "several battalions of the Imperial Guard, large numbers of Space Marines and several Dreadnaughts, a good deal of Chaos Marines and several Daemons, and he does it all within the timespan of twenty four hours." Alas, he breaks down after that.
- The Tau in general managed to survive an Imperial crusade, a Tyranid splinter fleet, defeated an Ork WAAAGH! and supposedly killed a daemon prince. The last in particular is quite an accomplishment since killing a daemon prince without the proper warp killing tools at hand is still an admirable effort.
- As for the Demon Prince, it might have helped that the Tau have no warp presence whatsoever.
- Although no longer cannon, one can't forget probably the biggest example in 40k, Ollianus Pious.
- The Horus Heresy novels also contain a fair amount of them. The one that stands out particularily was the mute bodyguard Maggrad, who was by the standards of ANY universe containing Space Marines, an extremely proficient killer. This was further emphasised later when he was able to almost best an extremely experienced Space Marine captain. Dinas Chayne, another bodyguard, was also an incredibly talented soldier who was, even more amazingly, capable of briefly matching a Primarch in term of swordplay. Many of the Imperial Army soldiers of the era were also pretty badass.
- Guardsman Hawke. In Graham Mc Neill's Storm of Iron, he escapes the initial assault (blowing away a couple of Chaos Space Marines with an assault cannon as he does), hoofs it to an orbital torpedo silo, and takes out half of the Iron Warriors Chaos Space Marines besieging the Citadel. He's also the only Imperial to survive the whole war, not counting slaves hauled off to Medrengard. To put that in perspective, he had been written off by his superiors as a useless, foul-mouthed, insubordinate and ill-disciplined Guardsman barely worthy of the name prior to the attack.
- Pretty much any high-level martial character in any edition of Dungeons And Dragons. Fighters? Yes. Warlords/Marshals? Yes. Rangers? Yes. Barbarians? Yes. Rogues? HELL yes. Barbarian/Fighter/Frenzied Berserker? OHSHI—
- In 4.0 there is an epic destiny for Rangers and Rogues called Godslayer. So yes, your halfling armed with shurikens and a dagger may in fact one day murder Tiamat.
- In The World Of Darkness, the Hunters are (for the most part) the ordinary humans who take on the supernatural. And then there are the Slashers, humans that can be just as dangerous as horrors...
Video Games
- The main protagonist of the Doom series, affectionally known as Doomguy, who singlehandedly slaughters hordes of demonic monsters from the depths of Hell and thus is "proven too tough for Hell to contain".
- Denise Marmalade, a cute glasses girl from The Misadventures of Tron Bonne (a Mega Man Legends spinoff), who could beat up Tron's mecha bare-handed. That's not hyperbole. If you're thinking about walking up to her and stomping on her, you'll be in for one hell of a surprise when she judo-throws you!
- Sgt. Johnson from the Halo video game series holds his own in battles against the Covenant and the Flood, and even manages to play a significant part in the defeat of one of the primary villains, despite being a normal human.
- To be fair, Johnson is a SPARTAN I, so he's not technically a "normal human".
- Lets not forget Sgt. Forge, from Halo Wars, who went one on one with an Arbiter and won.
- In the SNES RPG Earthbound, all of your party has access to powerful psychic attacks except for Jeff. However, he is the only party member who thinks to use a bazooka.
- Likewise, most of the cast in the sequel, MOTHER 3. Both Flint and Duster posses no PSI like Lucas and Kumatora, but are still able to take on the same powerful enemies as them. If it counts, even two of the oldest men on Nowhere Island - Alec and Old Man Wess - are able to provide plenty of backup for fighting against mechanized dinosaurs, giant water snakes, and fortified army tanks; at least until the new society deems them useless and throws them in a retirement home.
- The first game in the series had the prototype for Jeff, Roid/Lloyd, who similar could not use PSI but could use a flamethrower. Then there's Teddy, who is the leader of a gang and has a katana as his ultimate weapon.
- Also from the first game, Pippi. Yes, she's a little girl, but she boasts insane stat boosts with each level up that are about on par with Teddy's. It's pretty funny to watch her do near double the damage Ninten can do... until, tragically, you have to return her home to advance the plot.
- Although he spends half of Final Fantasy IX portrayed as the Butt Monkey, Steiner is the only character in the game (if not the entire planet) who isn't either a Super Prototype creature, a Half Human Hybrid that can call destruction from the heavens, a petting zoo person with natural gifts, or some chi master who can jump 100 feet in the air and throw fireballs at people. He just hits people really hard with swords, and is the only party member who can hit for max damage unaugmented.
- Kai Kitamura (and arguably Katina Tarask and Russel Bagman) in Super Robot Wars Original Generation, who are implied to fight through several major battles against rebels and alien invaders in grunt-level mecha, as opposed to the many Super Prototypes and Super Robots used by the other heroes. When Kai can get a badass Humongous Mecha of his own in the second game, even that drives the point home, as it looks exactly like his old grunt unit (in OG Gaiden, he officially gets another mecha, which is literally just a customized version of his grunt mech). One of his battle quotes handily sums up the role of a badass normal: "One fist may not be able to destroy the world... but it can certainly destroy you!"
- In a way, Elzam von Branstein (also known as Ratsel Feinschmecker) also applies. Most of the more skilled Real Robot pilots generally have some variety of psychic powers, and characters who don't generally balance this out by piloting the more powerful but generally less maneuverable Super Robots. Elzam, however, pilots the Huckebein Mk-II and Mk-III — both Real Robots designed for use by psychics — far better than any of the psychic characters ever could. He's just that good. When he finally does receive a Super Robot, he loses some of what makes him "normal", but gains the equivalent in pure Badass. And he still dodges better than the psychics.
- Kyosuke Nanbu also fits here. Unlike his colleagues he doesn't have any psychic powers and he isn't chosen by any guardians or anything like that. He manages to fight and win his battles by pure skill and a little luck. Want proof of this? How about the fact that his mech, the Alteisen Riese is considered to be an impractical mech, is so top-heavy that it requires a tesla drive (which normally enables flight on a mech) just to stand without falling over and has no special weapons (just guns and pellets). Yet he still manages to kick plenty of ass with it.
- Outside the OG Series, there's also Judgment's Calvina Coulange. While most of the originals here (friends or enemies) are of the Fury race in general (including Touya, who is Half Fury), she just happens to be a normal human, who used to be a genius Ace Pilot. And when presented with a mecha designed to be ridden by Furies... all she needs is just a little adjustment and then she resumes her old days of metal ass-kicking, piloting something she's supposedly not be able to drive.
- The marine character from the Alien vs Predator series. If fighting two of cinema's scariest creatures wasn't enough, he has to do so alone.
- Lady from Devil May Cry 3 has no demonic powers to call her own but slaughters lower demons easily, has sufficient agility to dodge and survives brief clashes with the Sons of Sparda.
- Amagi Saeko in the H-game Pretty Soldier Wars A.D. 2048, whose Charles Atlas Superpower brings her into the ranks of Extraordinarily Empowered Robot Girls... Or So I Heard.
- In the Fire Emblem series some of the best units are from classes that are "grunts" (Soldiers and Mercenaries). In addition, Leaf in the 4th game doesn't get one of the game's Game Breaker legendary weapons, but is still one of the better characters in the game, although the fact that he promotes into a Master Knight (one of if not the most broken classes in the series) might void him from qualifying as a Badass Normal.
- Leaf definitely qualifies for this trope in Thracia 776. He's exactly the same after promotion as he was before. Even story-wise, Leaf feels inadequate next to other resistance leaders, like Celice, Shanan, and Sety, who carry legendary weapons. Sety, Leaf's Obi-wan, tells him his struggles are what makes him a Holy Warrior.
- Ike, from the Radiance arc, may count. He first appears as nothing more than an honest, if blunt, young man who happens to be rather skilled with the sword. So skilled, actually, that not only does he grow into one of the best characters in both games, mobilize the Crimean Liberation Army to victory over Big Bad Ashnard, and take command of one of the greatest mercenary companies in history, but eventually ends up slaying a goddess. That's pretty badass for the first main Fire Emblem character to not be a royal.
- Now let's not forget Nephenee: out of the entire cast of the Telius universe and all but the second Fire Emblem games, she is the only recruitable Soldier class character. Soldiers have been a staple cannon fodder baddy for most of Fire Emblem's history, Nephenee herself is a rural farmer's daughter who joined up with La Resistance to defend her home country, so between having the weakest class and no combat experience, she'll suck, right? Ha. She may start weak, but with high growth rates and coming pre-bundled with one-half of the legendarily deadly Wrath/Resolve Skill combo, by the time she class-ups to Halberdier and gets Resolve she is the game's MVP (aside from Ike). To clarify, Wrath/Resolve gives her 150% to her Strength (attack damage), Speed (amount of consecutive attacks, dodging), and Skill (hit percentage and critical rate), AND also gives her a default 50% chance of critical strikes when her HP is 50% or below. What this makes for is a character that's nigh impossible to hit, attacks consecutively for high damage, AND by default has anywhere upwards of 60% chance of a 3x damage critical strike. And that's on a bad day. When her Biorhythm is on 'good', you've as well as won the battle.
- If we're talking about Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, Jamuka can't be left out. He's one of the few main characters from the first part of the game who has no Holy Blood, but he's still a very solid unit with or without his Killer Bow.
- If we go for normal, it's hard to get any more normal amongst the main characters than Sothe in Radiant Dawn. A number of endgame bosses expresses their surprise at seeing "a shabby little burglar" amongst the heroes.
Sephiran: Hello, child... I'm a little surprised to see an ordinary boy like you, fighting for the world. This day is full of surprises!
Sothe: No one's more surprised than me. I can't read people's feelings like Micaiah... I'm not invincible in battle like Ike... Between all these laguz kings and great beorc heroes, I don't really belong here.
- Also on the list are the adorable pre-classes of Fire Emblem The Sacred Stones. Several characters start off as incredibly weak little kids who have classes before main classes. What they also have are decent growth rates, and the ability to have an accumulative 50 levels gained as opposed to 40 or fewer. The end result? Unstoppable killing machines before the end game.
- The Vault Dweller in Fallout is able to trek across the desert on foot for months at a time, go toe-to-toe with heavy-weapon-wielding Super Mutants, rabid Deathclaws, crooked gangsters, and psionically empowered masterminds, salvage equipment from a highly radioactive hole in the ground with no lasting ill effects, create two new radioactive holes in the ground and even talk the last boss into killing himself — not bad for a guy who just wanted a water chip.
- Also keep in mind that, a) he spent his entire life in a nuke proof hole in the ground; b) him going on this mission was due solely to him literally picking the short straw. He was not necessarily the best man for the job. Just, it seems, effectively.
- His grandson/daughter does most of this too, but without so much of the crossing the desert thing (he/she gets a car). This may or may not be an example of Lamarck Was Right, as a possible ending you can get when you're a male has your own illegitimate offspring taking over New Reno when he's twelve and dying in his sleep of old age seventy or so years later.
- And in Fallout 3, the Vault Dweller was literally forced to leave because the Overseer wanted him dead, after being told all his life that the outside was hideously unsafe, with only a pistol and a jumpsuit to his name unless you did some looting on the way out. And then he steps into legend.
- Ayla from Chrono Trigger. Most of the party has powerful magic granted to them by the God of War. Ayla beats the crap out of things with her fists. And yet, she's a strong contender for the best party member.
- At higher levels, her fists upgrade to the point where she deals the damage cap on a critical. And by most of the party getting magic, we mean all but her, the laser-spewing robot, and the guy who already had magic to begin with.
- Chrono Cross has a Badass Normal in the form of Miguel. Many people get hung up on fighting him and die countless times to him. What's his claim to fame in the Chrono Cross universe? He was the main character's neighbor when the main character was a child. That's it.
- The Boss of Metal Gear Solid 3. While the other members of the Cobra Unit had supernatural powers or equipment that let them do things like talk to the dead, turn invisible, or be covered in bees, all The Boss had was an uncanny sense of perception, enough skill in fighting to kick anybody's ass, ever, and a really enormous pair of balls — kind of ironic, considering the whole "being a woman" thing.
- Also, The Fury. "I don't need any fucking magic powers to help me kill people."
- Solid Snake and Big Boss also qualify. Despite living in a world of everything from nuclear armed walking tanks, to genetically engineered super soldiers, they are both the greatest soldiers of their time.
- Solid Snake doesn't entirely qualify. He's definitely not normal and he was engineered to be the best soldier. True, it's not to the extent of the Genome Soldiers, but he's explicitly supposed to be "better" genetically suited for war than they are. Still, he's not a cyborg ninja like several other characters.
- As of Metal Gear Solid 4, Johnny "Akiba" Sasaki, of all people, qualifies. Yes, he spends much of the first act incapacitated with diarrhea (as he was in the previous games) and seems hopelessly out of tune. But it's shown he's immune to the effects of Liquid's "Guns of the Patriots" scheme because he doesn't have any nanomachines. He also lacks genetic enhancements (as far as we now) because he wasn't a real Genome soldier. And in spite of all his lacking qualities he actually manages to get a Big Damn Heroes moment later on in the last act, proving he's far tougher than he's given credit for.
- Urban Chaos Riot Response. The player character served in the marines for three years and joined T-Zero because his father was killed by the "Burners". Halfway through the game he has arrested over three hundred gang members (not including the ones you do on screen), saved thousands of civilians, and at one point shoots a burner through the neck to save a firefighter. With a pistol, over fifty feet away.
- In City Of Heroes, you begin your early career fighting demonically powered street gangs, work your way up through fighting psychic robots, hordes of demons, eight-feet-tall genetically altered supersoldiers, cyborg criminals, and lab grown supervillains. The final, and most difficult enemy faction of the game however, is a group of normal humans armed with tasers and six-shooters.
- And their allies, basically Ninjas to the max. Not to mention the "Natural" origin for heroes or villains was originally intended for, and is still used by, player characters whose concept is a Badass Normal.
- However, Natural simply means "nothing my species can't normally do" — if the player character is an alien, those "natural" abilities can go a long way. Like, say, if you're Kryptonian.
- Within the lore of the game itself, there's one of the iconic heroes, Justice Leag- I mean, Freedom Phalanx member Manticore. Similarly to Batman, he is the only member on the aforementioned team who has no supernatural power granted to him by the gods, was not experimented on by evil scientists, and was not born with any great psychic ability. His real claim to fame? Really, really good aim with a bow and arrow. Although having more money than God probably helped. Also, the first arc of the Top Cow comic series gave him teleportation ability, which he can use with clever results such as shooting explosive arrows into a room half a mile away. Despite this new ability, however, he's still perceived as nothing special in terms of power compared to his teammates, and yet he's often the one they turn to when their leader is out of commission. Not bad.
- Word Of God reveals that Manticore can teleport because he has hacked into the city-wide Emergency Teleportation Network.
- B.B.Hood (Bulleta) in Darkstalkers is the only one who doesn't use supernatural abilities, but she still manages to take down monsters with nothing more than heavy weaponry despite being a young human girl.
- Luca Blight from Suikoden II fights with only a single sword and heavy armor in a world where magic is pretty commonplace. He ends up tearing through the protagonist's army when they try to target him in a battle. He is nearly undefeatable, only dying when he is ambushed by the 18 strongest members of the opposing army (protagonist included) plus some archers. He's riddled with cutscene arrows, fights six party members, riddled with some more cutscene arrows, fights six more party members, fights six MORE party members, gets riddled with more cutscene arrows, then finally dies in a duel against the protagonist. This is generally considered his best CMOA, although there are several more.
- Almost the entire Nanaya clan of demon hunting assassins in Tsukihime. They're supposed to have some psychic abilities, but otherwise fight demons and half-demons with pure physical talent. Shown very well in a Kagetsu Tohya side story with Nanaya Kiri (Shiki's real father) and his hit on a certain demon-blooded family, kicking much ass, up to and including disassembling his primary target when backed into a corner... wielding nothing but a pointed stick (metal, granted, but still).
- Shiki, the main game's protagonist, comes close to this trope. His ability to keep up physically with supernatural opponents (mostly vampires) is the result of ingrained training... but his ability to kill literally anything he can reach is decidedly abnormal (not just supernatural, though unique).
- The playable characters in Xenosaga include a cyborg, a robot, a Realian, a URTV, the handmaiden of Mary, the universe's fail-safe, and Jin. Though he is a thoroughly ordinary human, Jin manages to slice Humongous Mecha in two, stop a blade with his bare hands, hold off waves of gnosis before his Heroic Sacrifice, finish off one of these gnosis after being impaled with a BFS, and be an all-around badass.
- Allen of all people gains elements of this in the third episode. When confronting Kevin Winnicot, he takes several lightning blasts that would kill any normal person, then gets back up, all while telling Kevin—who is a supernaturally powerful Testament—how pathetic he really is. Also, in a scene after that, he pounces on an end-game level Gnosis, bludgeons it with his gun, and shoots it point-blank in the face. It's safe to say he would have made a full transition into a Badass Normal if there had been a fourth episode.
- Two characters from Raidou Kuzunoha Vs The Soulless Army. First, the obvious: Satake, leader of the local Yakuza gang. He beat up one of the game's heavily-armored Super Soldiers with his bare hands, only suffering some broken ribs. Second, the not-so-obvious: Raidou's perfectly un-supernatural employer, Shouhei Narumi. He somehow got to the end of a dungeon crawling with demons he can't see, and Super Soldiers that, while he could see them to fight, are heavily armored. And by the end, he was injured, but still standing and able to walk.
- Heihachi Mishima, the former leader of the Mishima Zaibatsu in Tekken. With a demon-powered father, son, and grandson, this guy still manages to stay standing, survive an explosion while being at Ground Zero, and manipulate events all around him. Fight on, Mystic Man Bentley, fight on.
- Not to mention the guy is, what, seventy-something years old and has muscles the size of bowling balls?
- Kyle from Lunar: The Silver Star. He can't use the legendary Dragon Magic like The Hero Alex, use healing powers like his girlfriend Jessica, or rain down destructive magic like Mia or Nash, but give the man a sword, and he could singlehandedly cut down a thousand bandits/monsters/whoever forgot to pay their "protection fee" that day.
- While in most Tales of Games, magic is hinted at being quite normal and can be matched by the physical arte users, the only game in which this trope can exist is Tales Of Phantasia, and it counts for Cless, Chester, and to some extent Suzu. Magic is needed to defeat Dhaos, and Mint's magic is only healing so obviously, they have to get Arche and Klarth, who are rarities outside of elves in that they are able to use magic. (Klarth is one of the few humans who can use magic because he makes pacts with spirits, Arche is half-elf.) Cless, Chester, and Suzu are left to their own weapons and their own strengths, not being blessed with such power, but they do compensate for their powerful techniques, some of which border on magic. (As for Suzu, she learns her techniques through ninja scrolls which may be counted as magic).
- In the game's prequel where magic is limited to those with elven blood, angels, or the chosen, Sheena has hinted that she, Regal (And maybe Zelos despite being a chosen) have elven blood distantly because they use magic. But meanwhile Presea (despite being modded with expheres) is able to pull extremely heavy stuff with one hand despite being smaller than Genis and she and Lloyd are the only ones with no magic skills whatsoever.
- Also worth noting is Tales Of Rebirth's Milhaust Selkirk. He is the only Huma who doesn't have a Force, but he is still the highest ranking character amongst the Karegia Kingdom and makes other Force users bend to his will and order. That being said, he is also powerful enough to beat the crap out of Veigue (although he was mentally distraught that time). And when both duke it out in full force, Milhaust was beaten... but even Veigue admitted Milhaust held back and there's no telling what the outcome will be if Milhaust was serious.
- Breath Of Fire V has three main party members. One of which is an extreme rarity in that he bonded with a dragon, another of which was a girl with wings modded by surgery to make her into a walking air purifier, with magic. The third...is the leader of a rebellion with only her guns. Badass Normal Award of this game goes to Lin.
- The short-lived series Loom implies Rusty being the most badass normal out of all the characters who were intended to be playable. (Bobbin is a weaver and thus able to use magic, Fleece is a shepherd who can sing magic like Bobbin's.) But since They Wasted A Perfectly Good Plot, we'll never know if he could have found a way to use magic or was just able to compensate by being a smith or able to make things to fight off the Dead and Chaos.
- Ray from Disaster: Day of Crisis is this trope incarnate. This guy survives two volcano eruptions, an earthquake, two tsunamis, a flood, and a hurricane, and he still comes out smelling like roses, all while saving people and taking out countless mooks from an incredibly elite former elite special forces unit. God damn. And apparently he stops a meteor.
- The Soldier class in Mass Effect seems like this this...until you find out that all Alliance soldiers are implanted with numerous genetic modification programs that, over the course of a few years, makes them significantly stronger, faster, and tougher, even without hardsuit functions that boost strength and give them kinetic shields, making them more Badass Abnormal. The best candidate for Badass Normal is actually Wrench Wench Tali, who is the only crewmember without psychic powers or military training and the only genetic modifications she has are immune boosters.
- Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic have numerous badass normal characters:
- Orgrim Doomhammer and Anduin Lothar, the leaders of the Horde and Alliance respectively in Warcraft II: the Tides of Darkness (and later retellings of the Second War). In a world war with dragons, undead sorcerer knights, paladins, ogres, magi, ogre-magi, submarines and countless other magical and technological weapons and persons of mass destruction, the Warchief and Grand Marshal still stand out as the two most dangerous beings present. Doomhammer gets additional props for being one of the few orc leaders who did not drink demon blood to gain super strength and Lothar gains extra props for being sixty.
- Action Girl Ashelin in the later Jak And Daxter games.
- Also, Sig the Wastelander mercenary. When you can survive being taken down by a giant Metal Head centipede monster and appear in all future games, you qualify as a Badass Normal.
- In Saga Frontier II, one of the two main characters, Gustav XIII, is an exiled prince who is incapable of channeling and using magic. This is significant because, in a world where people are so dependent on magic that they have to use wooden swords and armor to channel their energy for combative use, he conquers the known world by simply using iron equipment (which negate magic powers).
- Resident Evil is packed with these. None of the protagonists have any special powers besides army training, and one (Claire) is just a college student. They bring Action Survivor to a whole new level.
- Claire's badassness grows in CVX where she single-handedly breaks into an Umbrella base, outruns a chopper that's shooting up the hallway with a chaingun, and uses clever thinking to destroy an entire firing squad. The only reason she got captured was because she ran out of bullets. And this is from a 19 year old college girl.
- In keeping with the above, the survivors of Left 4 Dead count. 4 regular humans against a horde of zombies backed up by superp-powered sub-boss zombies.
- While every person in Shadow Hearts has their own unique skills such as being trained in a specific art or being in possession of a magical camera that reveals enemy's stats, the first Shadow Hearts game gives Margarete, who is nothing more than a spy armed with a pistol and got a few weapons... even though quite a bit of them are "Given" to her as every time she uses a skill, she presses a button and says "Yeah I can use some help here".
- STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl has the eponymous stalkers, all of whom survive (and thrive) in a radioactive wasteland covered in patches of land where the laws of physics have gone bananas, all of which is ruled by psychotics with various levels of firearms. All of whom will kill you just as soon as they will trade with you. Anyone who can thrive in that environment is a badass normal.
- Despite setting out to skewer every Silver Age trope going, it took until the sequel for the Freedom Force series to roll out some Badass Normals with the Wartime Heroes, capable of standing toe-to-toe with the worst Energy-X powered monstrosities Blitzkreig can devise.
- Specialist Cross in Prototype is a Blackwatch agent who specializes in hunting down and killing "Runners" like Alex Mercer, and as a result, he's one of the toughest boss fights in the game. If you expect an easy fight with him because he's just a puny mortal, you will get your face stove in by his electric staff very quickly.
- In Nexus War the Eternal Soldier's power come from being a Bad Ass; he compares favorably with angels, demons and powerful wizards.
- Final Fantasy VI's General Leo is a highly accomplished swordsman, has the sweet "shock" ability, and he holds the same high position in the Empire that Kefka and Celes once did. And guess what, not only does he not have magical powers, but he refused the magitek infusion that would have given them to him!
- Viking Battle For Asgard has the main character leading one of these. Against whom you ask? The Queen of the Underworld and her Undead army, and they win.
- Jason Flemming in the Xbox Live Arcade game Super Metroid styled game, Shadow Complex.
- In the Disgaea series, pick a human, any human (game play). The strongest example is Sapphire (both in and out of game play). Subverted with Adell, who thinks he's human (he's not).
- Amy Rose has really grown into one of these after Sonic Adventure 2. She has become a very skilled fighter with her hammer.
- In Starcraft, being Badass Normal is the hat of the Terrans.
- Leliana of Dragon Age is the resident Badass Normal. The rest of the party consists of two Grey Wardens, two mages, a warhound, a Proud Warrior Race Guy explicitly stated to be stronger and tougher than any human, a dwarf (same qualifications), an elf trained from childhood by the deadliest order of assassins in the land, and a war golem. Leliana is an ordinary young woman whose training was about seduction and espionage rather than combat, and she can hold her own against any of her fellow party members.
- Gordon Freeman, resident Badass Bookworm of Half Life (and doesn't even have a lot of opportunities to display his "bookworm" credentials). At the beginning of the Black Mesa Incident he has nothing but his glasses, a crowbar and a fancy hazard suit. He proceeds to carve a bloody path through hordes of very hungry aliens, heavily-armed Marines and the extra-dimensional armies of a giant bio-mechanical psychic fetus, eventually killing said fetus in its home territory and single-handedly stopping the invasion (which merely serves as the impetus for another invasion, but that's for a different page). When he returns more than a decade later he has become a heroic legend Shrouded In Myth, whose mere presense gives the interdimensional alien empire a collective Oh Crap and, after leaving another extensive trail of bodies, destroyed military hardware and the ruins of a Combine stronghold, causes a world-wide revolution, the invigorated La Resistance eagerly following behind him, because things in front of him have a tendency to die. By the end of Episode Two, the Combine on Earth is shattered, isolated and reduced to a tiny fraction of its former strength, when only four or five days before their rule of Earth was absolute. Moral of the story: don't fuck with theoretical physicists.
- Similarly, Adrian Shephard is one of hundreds of grunts sent to clean up the mess at Black Mesa, and the game proper begins with his allies evacuating or dropping like flies. He proceeds to carve his own path through aforementioned aliens and armies, along with a differently-aligned military faction and an entirely new army of vicious extra-dimensional aliens. He even acquires the attention of the mysterious GMan despite not being a part of his plans at all.
- While certainly less impressive, Barney Calhoun qualifies for this trope not only for his actions in Black Mesa while protected with nothing but a vest and a helmet (as opposed to the specialist gear of Adrian and Gordon) but also for his subsequent actions against the Combine, infiltrating their ranks to feed information to La Resistance then leading the City 17 battle in both command and combat roles before Gordon arrives to show him how it's done.
Web Comics
- While the world of Errant Story is filled with powerful time ninja, mages, elves and other overpowered sorts running about, Jon Amraphel is just good at shooting things with a gun. While his relative lack of power is something he complains about often, it hasn't stopped him from killing or subduing many of those mentioned above with the skills he has.
- Jason Chesterfield of It's Walky! is about the only character who's an entirely normal human, and yet also among the only ones who's never had a severe mental incident. In the finale, he's gotten so annoyed with people telling him he and the human species have to wait for their god-like protector to show up, he knocks out the person who claims this, takes command, rallies everybody to fight an unstoppable extreterrestrial invasion with his commanding voice, takes control of the the conspiracy that was trying to kill him minutes before with a bit of charisma and a well-placed kick, and is the only one who isn't moved by the climax. And he never stopped being snarky.
- Susan from El Goonish Shive has shown to be a calm, competent fighter when necessary, even though she has no actual powers save summoning of hammers, even getting a mass-evacuation of Moperville High during the Omega Slime encounter.
- Sarah has also had her moments (though that second one was just a dream sequence).
- Anyone in Antihero For Hire not relying on truly epic amounts of Applied Phlebotinum, particularly Shadehawk.
- The eponymous character of The Adventures Of Dr Mc Ninja. Ninja status aside, when you're a (relatively) normal human that can punch Dracula in the face without flinching, you know what you are. His Sidekick Gordito on the other hand is a Badass Normal among Badass Normals, a twelve-year-old gunslinger able to hold his own among a family of ninjas. As the Doctor himself notes, he doesn't bring a twelve-year-old along for his lack of experience with girls.
- The Doctor also punched out DEATH. Between that and Gordito's growing a Mustache from force of will alone, we have this trope somewhere over... Must resist obvious joke.
- Girl Genius has a plethora of badass normals, but Airman Third Class Axel "The Unstoppable" Higgs takes the cake. He may be a nobody in the Baron's fleet without any special training, fancy gadgets, or a mysterious family past, but he's so badass that his introduction is a Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
- To expand, for those who don't want to look at the pretty pictures: He is awakened from a peaceful sleep (in a ship that had previously been hit by cannons) by the alarms set off by getting shot, rather than the shot itself. He then finds the crewmates he was summoned to assist were totally dead in the first place. He dual-wields wrenches to fight off the Sturmhalten-sewer-native monsters and finds an unconscious Baron von Wulfenbach. Then, while attempting to get the Baron to safety, he goes through the following: he encounters Bangladesh DuPree, who breaks his arm and who he knocks out, breaking her jaw in the process; MacGyvers an autopilot for the escape gig; gets his leg broken by DuPree; is bitten by her; lands in a farmer's pond; has his other arm broken by an angry swan; and is shot in the leg by soldiers who mistake him for a Revenant. His resolute disposition only breaks after he has had a great deal of rum, at which point he very agitatedly informs his maimers and rescuers just what he has been through in the process of rescuing these two.
- Moloch von Zinzer is more of an Action Survivor, but he briefly ascends into badassery by having a trained (if by her own admission rather inept) ninja go wow over his survival skills.
- "Commander Kickass" from Looking For Group. The first time we see him, he defeats most of the hero party by turning a table on them and disarming their caster with a thrown helmet. From all we know, he's just a standard human (or half-elf).
- Nanashi from Earthsong. She's now in possession of All Your Powers Combined, but before that, she attacked the physical incarnation of a planet. With a stick.
- The main cast of characters from Faans! before they all got implanted superpowers. To start out, the only real muscle they had on their side was a quiet martial arts expert and a big bruiser. The leader was scrawny and two others had/have severe weight problems. Nevertheless, they hold their own against demigods, vampires, government agents, just plain stab-happy psychopaths, time-traveling warlords, frost giants, mental-brainwashing...the list just goes on. Granted, they did tend to grab their enemies weapons and unlease a wave of energy-blasts but that is just common sense. And the returning threat against all this is a simple rapist/cult leader. Badass normal villain. The 'Faans' make gods run in fear but this creepy bastard has scored some nasty wins.
- Roy, Belkar and Haley in Order Of The Stick. There's a reason the series churns out CMOAs like it does.
- Acrobat has the title character and a few of his allies.
- Emergency Exit has Saya. She shows up a demon with a (shootable) video game zapper.
- Rhea of Slightly Damned is one of these. While she can use earth magic, she only has one spell, Terra Spike, which is pretty weak. She relies on her natural talents, such as good senses of smell and hearing, rather than her magic.
- Parodied (along with typical superpower origins) in one Sluggy Freelance stick-figure filler story. An alternative version of Riff has his parents killed by a random villain (who actually seems to be a stick-figure Doctor Doom), and becomes Orphan Boy - gifted with the proportional speed and strength of someone without parents!
- A straight example would be
Nash Straw Reynold Strom being able to fight Oasis. While she's obviously superhuman, he gives the impression of just being so highly trained he's almost on the same level. A less spectacular example is Feng fighting Kusari (the latter being almost identical to Oasis).
- And, of course, there's Bun-bun. He's a small rabbit who can stand up to almost anyone, superhuman or not, and while his degree of physical strength does seem unnatural, it's never been given any other explanation than his attitude.
Web Original
- Tech Infantry is a world with vampires, mages, werewolves, and eight-foot insectoid alien killing machines, and yet Erich von Shrakenberg, Icarus Hicks, James Welthammer, and the entire personnel of Earth Fleet and the Light Infantry manage to hold their own.
- Red Panda Adventures has both the Red Panda and his sidekick being ones.
- Sensei Tetsuo Ito, martial arts instructor at Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe. A little old man, he starts every term's aikido classes by picking the most dangerous mutant in the room and demonstrating that he can kick said mutant's ass.
- The forum RP Insane Cafe 3: The Curse of the Haunted Hotel has a a group of characters known as the "Pelvanida Group". They are a group of scientists and soldiers who kill an entire group of very powerful mages with nothing more than a shitload of guns and explosives.
- Most PPC Agents are ordinary humans who get the job done just through whatever training they received, experience, and sometimes luck.
Western Animation
- Avatar The Last Airbender:
- Sokka is the only non-bender of the main group. Despite his near-uselessness in battle and lack of spirituality (and role as the comic relief), as the show progresses, we see his engineering and strategy prowess improve to the point where he is openly labeled as the "idea guy" of the team. More recently, his inferiority in combat spurred him to seek out training in that area, plus he acquired a unique sword, making him even more badass despite the fact that he is still inherently normal.
- Also, he took down Combustion Man, a Determinator so mean that the Bender part of the team could barely slow him down.
- Early in the second season, we are also introduced to Mai, an elegant shuriken specialist, and Ty Lee, a Kyusho Jitsu user and acrobat/gymnastic, both non-bending Dark Action Girls. Both have been able to take down elite fighters and even the main characters with little difficulty numerous times.
- There is also the Lady Of War Suki, who kicks all kinds of ass even without weapons or bending powers. She gets Charles Atlas Superpower, though.
- Of the Order of the White Lotus members who we see fight, only one is a non-bender, Piandao, who, not so incidentally, is the one who gave Sokka his training, and more than holds his own. To reiterate: a foot soldier in the Fire Nation achieved the rank of swordsmaster, then retired—and successfully resisted all attempts to unretire him. A force of 100 soldiers was sent after him. He sent them all back.
- Get Ed has Ol' Skool, the old Mentor of the main group of heroes. Every other character has high tech Hoverboards, Jetboots, Jetpacks, etc. and top-of-the-line protective gear to use. Ol' Skool has a conventional skateboard & a simple construction helmet. With just these things he is able to outrace pretty much anything in the series without getting hurt or breaking a sweat.
- Monster Allergy has Elena Potato even though she only has the Sight Dom.
- Bloom from Winx Club goes to this after being Brought Down To Normal by the Trix.
- WITCH: Caleb never has any more powers than your basic fit young man, yet he somehow is just as effective in a fight as the main girls who, kinda, control the essence of the five elements! By the end of the second series, even Will's pet dormouse has more powers than him, and he still manages to hold his own in a fight. If that isn't badass, nothing is.
- In the first season, Will more or less is a Badass Normal, as her powers hold no use in battle, unlike in the comic. So the writers have to improvise, giving her what nonmagical actions she needs to fight the bad guys. However, in the second season, once she gains the power of Quintessence, she no longer fits this trope.
- Robin from Teen Titans, though it frequently escalates into the Charles Atlas Superpower level. Slade is a villainous Bad Ass Normal except in the fourth season where an intergalactic demon resurrects him and grants him fire powers, removing the "normal."
- As one fan put it, "Robin's superpower is insanity! He jumps off a building and figures out how to not die on the way down".
- To be fair, Robin was trained by...well, if you don't know, you need to go away forever.
- Justice League Unlimited made sure the normals were all badass in their own way. Though it was a sore spot for Wildcat, believing that just with no superpowers besides being an excellent fighter made him obsolete in the League. He even said that while Black Canary was mostly a badass normal fighter, the fact she had the canary cry sonic scream made her much more useful to the team.
- Band manager Charles Foster Ofdensen of Metalocalypse, who can kick the ass of a man twice his size and be thrown from a top story window and land like a cat. He also runs the seventh largest financial empire in the world.
- Transformers Animated has Sari, the human sidekick to the giant robot Autobots. Okay, she's not completely human, but she's at a human power level so it counts for the first two seasons—the season three premiere turns her into a Badass Abnormal. Usually she's background support, but character development's slowly made her a better planner and fighter—chasing off the Constructicons was a particularly notable incident. And then she got an upgrade.
- Captain Fanzone gets an honorable mention here for managing to hold off one of Meltdown's mutated monstrosities by himself (while the other one gave the robot ninja trouble). Despite his trouble with technology and usual Butt Monkey status, he's still a brave and competent police chief who doesn't let his early prejudice against the Autobots get in the way of upholding the law.
- And on the organophobic Cybertron he's perceived as a walking bioterrorism weapon, something he puts to good use to interrogate a robot four times his size.
- Mighty Max and his allies Virgil and Norman all count, as they often had to defeat super-powered villains while possessing no actual powers of their own aside from Norman's great strength and swordfighting skills.
- Although Norman is a LOT older than he looks and is immortal (but not invulnerable), so whether or not he qualifies as normal is debatable.
- Jackie from Jackie Chan Adventures. He pulls off many stunts including the classic Improvised Weapons and a great deal of other things that would be impossible if he weren't a cartoon character. He also doesn't use the magic on the show as much as other characters, using his own skills instead. Lampshaded by Ratso when Chan ran back up a train as it was falling off a cliff.
"No way he's human."
- Uncle, Tohru, Viper, El Toro, Valmont and Chi Fu also have moments of badass normalcy.
- In the world of She Ra Princess Of Power, almost every female character is either a super powerful Action Girl or Magical Girl, and even the James Bondage Straight Arrow male was a pretty good illusionist. Even then, the sniper Netossa and the space pirate Sea Hawk manage to hold their own when they're in battle despite their lack of magic powers.
- Jake's Dad in American Dragon Jake Long is this. Jake is a dragon, Rose is a born dragon hunter Action Girl, Spud is the embodiment of a Genius Ditz, and Trixie just has street smarts. Jake's Dad is a Cougar Scout, has extreme parent insticts, and that's it. However, he unknowingly defeated the Jersey Devil with a trombone and a can of bear spray. He also held his own against Bad Ass dragon blood drinking vampires for over four minutes with his bare hands in the episode, "Bite Father, Bite Son". During the final episode, he used a vase to kill an army of demons. Pretty good, considering he did it without knowing his son was a dragon (except the last one of course). All the above had powers, he didn't.
- Elisa Maza in Gargoyles. She can't fly, break rocks with her fingers, zap things, or even have access to high technology like practically everybody else, but all she needs is her handgun, a running start, and an attitude to help take down characters with far more advantages than she has. Sure, she loses quite often, but then so does pretty much everybody.
- Macbeth nearly qualifies as he is able to deal with the gargoyles even without his suit on some occasions. (But being unkillable kinda renders him out of the running for this trope.) But probably the best example is King Arthur Pendragon, who manages to defeat Macbeth with his powered suit in outright combat one on one, something Goliath was never able to do despite his physical advantage. Note that he did this without Excalibur, just an ordinary mace.
- In Wild CA Ts Grifter is the only member of the team who is full-blooded human, while the rest have superpowers due to being descendants or full-blooded members of an ancient alien super-race. His only powers are trickiness, good aim, and general badassery.
- Darkwing Duck, once he put his ego aside.
- Silver Sable and Black Cat are both examples of this from The Spectacular Spider Man. Tombstone is possibly an example- he is never explicitly stated to have superstrength, but he is shown to be able to trounce Spider-man effortlessly when taking the latter by surprise, and be a match for him even a straight fight. Hammerhead is a partial example- he mostly relies on his strength and skill at brawling, but uses his steel-plated skull to absorb any punishment a normal man couldn't take. The Enforcers also qualify in their first appearance, though later they get upgraded with Powered Armor. Kraven was one, but has now acquired superpowers.
- While Walter "Doc" Hartford of Adventuresofthe Galaxy Rangers has a Series 5 implant, his "superpowers" merely enhance his already genius-level hacking ability. When it comes to combat, he holds his own with a standard issue blaster, a sword, his fists, and copious wit. Not bad for a dude who is fighting alongside a cyborg, a genetically-engineered supersoldier, and an Action Girl with Jean Grey-type Psionic abilities.
- Danny Phantom. In A World where ghosts roam every corner, nearly all the ghost hunters shown are incompetent... except Valerie Gray who stands out among them as a normal gal packing (anti-ghost) heat. Sam Manson gets a few of these moments throughout the series as well, but not Tucker. He's more of the Action Survivor.
- Terry McGinnis in Batman Beyond. Yes, he has the suit. But he has taken on bad guys without it, even when he is at a distinct disadvantage. And won. He also went up against the suit when it was taken over by a rogue AI. He won that, too.
|
|
