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Authority Equals Asskicking
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Jame: I'm not asking who'd win in a fight, I'm asking if the Czar outranks the mayor. York: And you don't think those issues are related?
The higher a character is in his hierarchy, the better he is in a fight. This goes double for non-protagonists.
Who'd win in a fight between Rambo, and the President of the United States of America?
Sound like a strange question? Well, really, it shouldn't be - it's all about who's got more power, right? And authority is a type of power. Hence, people in positions of great authority have more power, and are therefore a lot more dangerous in a fight. That's just the way it is. The result of this is that if you're the leader of a country, planet, army, navy, religious cult, criminal syndicate, or otherwise have a large group of people who follow your orders, you're also automatically a master of personal combat. Quite often, you have to wonder why they needed The Dragon in the first place.
A natural result of this is that, within a military force, Crippling Overspecialization be damned, an individual's combat-skills are identical to his rank - a sergeant is tougher than an ordinary grunt, a Lieutenant is tougher than him, the Colonel can kick the Lieutenant's ass, thus leading all the way up to the General, who can kick everybody's ass. At the same time. Dual Wielding a chainsaw and a rocket launcher. This makes sense in the lower ranks, where moving up the ranks is dependent on how well you perform in your current rank, the lowest of which is combat, but it becomes a bit silly when it applies to higher ranking officers, who do completely different work and hence need completely different skills- Generals in modern armies do not actually go into battle, but direct the fighting from afar.
In many cases, this can be justified by authority-figures having access to better equipment, training, Functional Magic or Applied Phlebotinum. In other cases, the culture will be based entirely on martial skill, meaning that he's in charge because he kicks more ass than anyone else. In fact, the existence of this trope may well be a relic of that time in Western world history when it was true for us — sure, it helps to be smart, wealthy, and/or the default answer when anyone asked "Who rules here?" But if you're the kind of king (ala Aragorn or David) who takes to the field with his men and acquits himself well, that might get you a certain amount of respect (or fear) no amount of brilliant politicking ever could. Heck, working your way up to the top is often a good way to get this trope!
Common recipients of this trope includes General Ripper, Colonel Badass, the Diabolical Mastermind, the Corrupt Corporate Executive, The Evil Emperor, The Evil Prince and President Evil — but, on the other hand, the Rebellious Princess benefits from this one enough to be a competent mage despite her sheltered life. Similarly for the President Action. The Mad Scientist is more likely to go One Winged Angel, but he can still invoke this trope if he's got a large enough cadre of mutants, henchmen, and/or combat robots at his disposal. The Evil Overlord will always take advantage of this.
It seems likely that this trope is how the final fight of a video game came to be known as the "boss" in the first place.
A strange result of this trope happens in games with named and similar enemies where more dangerous versions of enemies the player encountered earlier have a higher rank in their name, often resulting in the player fighting entire squadrons consisting entirely of generals near the end of the game with no lower ranked units in sight.
The Almighty Janitor is an inversion, who is far more powerful than his lowly rank would imply. The Desk Jockey is a different inversion, who has been promoted out of the field into authority. Compare You Can Barely Stand. See also Large And In Charge, Izchaks Wrath, and Distribution Of Ninjutsu. Not to be confused with Asskicking Equals Authority.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Every leader of anything in One Piece is always stronger than all their subordinates. Even the seemingly frail criminal masterminds like Captain Kuro suddenly whip out amazing martial arts or devil fruit skills at the last second. The Marines are all more or less ranked in strength, with the generic guys at the bottom always as weak cannon-fodder and everyone at the top made of pure bad-ass. The only exception to this rule usually comes in the form of anime-only filler arcs, like the Jabba The Hutt admiral who was so fat he could barely move. The manga plays it totally straight, though.
- Except in the CP9 Arc, when some of the most powerful government assassins in the world were led by a guy who was weaker than a common soldier. He's simply the one who hands out directives, and is quite cowardly and arrogant. However, he made up for this with his sword-elephant. Yeah. This manga barely scrapes by not being a Widget Series.
- This was lampshaded, in that most of CP9 resented Spandam, not because of his total lack of morals or his disrespect for everyone, but because he was in charge despite being weaker than them.
- Also in Thriller Bark. While Gecko Moria is quite powerful, he pales in comparison to some of his minions, particularly his Dragon Oz. At least, until he goes One Winged Angel.
- Moria was able to fight with a Yonkou. He didn't win, but he put up a fight, he's much more powerful than any of his minions except Oz, even without Shadows Asgard.
- In this series its kinda justified that being a high rank makes you powerful (and remember CP9 technically doesn't 'exist', so its leader has no real strength because of it) since to get that far, you have to bring down an unknown number of pirates, and some of those guys are utter monsters.
- Bleach uses the militaristic version of this painfully straight in the Soul Society arc. Everyone in the 13 Court Guard Squads are ranked in accordance with their Spirit Power, with the Captains being uniformly Nigh Invulnerable, Lieutenants being only slightly less dangerous, and so forth down the ranks.
- Lieutenants are significantly less dangerous. Most captains have Bankai, while most lieutenants have only Shikai. There's two exceptions. Renji has Bankai, but only got it a few months ago, so he doesn't have the stamina to keep it going for long or the skill to wield it properly. Then there's Hitsugaya, who despite being a skilled, Bankai-wielding captain, is still a child, and his strength reflects that.
- Although to be a Captain, you don't necessarily HAVE to kick ass, but it helps.
- The perfect example here would be Kenpachi Zaraki, Captain of the 11th squad. He achieved the position by killing his predecessor in single combat. He did that without having achieved Bankai. He didn't even know his weapon's name, a major disadvantage in the world of Bleach. Of course, neither of those things can stop him from being one of the biggest, toughest badasses in the series.
- Also done with the Espada, although, that could also be a case of Asskicking Equals Authority.
- Yu-Gi-Oh, Yami Yugi used to be a pharaoh and Kaiba was his High Priest. In the spin-off Yu-Gi-Oh GX, Jaden is a reincarnated king.
- Samurai Deeper Kyo also uses a military ranking within the Mibu Clan: while Red Shirt cannon fodder are unranked, the protagonists have to fight the Five Planets (Goyosei), comparable to Captains, then the Taishirou (the Four Sages or Stars, who order the Goyosei around), comparable to Gods to the rest of the Mibu Clan, and truly possessing godlike powers, to finish with the former Red King, Nigh Invulnerable, possessing a power far beyond that of a Taishirou, and only remaining clan member to know the truth about the clan, making him a Magnificent Bastard and One Winged Angel. The twelve generals can also be found in this manga, each possessing power slightly under or on par with a Goyosei's, and although they were created by the Mibu, they were given as henchmen to the evil Oda Nobunaga, who is unsuspectingly controlled by the Mibu.
- Murder Princess uses it fairly straight; the most powerful swordsman in the kingdom, possessing implausible fencing powers, and the only non-red shirt member of the army? The crown-prince, of course... as a matter of fact, the only one who can match him blow for blow, is the titular Princess...
- In Kiddy Grade, Eclipse is initially believed to be a mere high-ranked administrator and bureaucrat (except for a few hinting flashbacks) until about halfway through the last story arc, she is revealed to possess G-class ES abilities on par with the two lead girls of the series. And it's justified too; her ability is part of the reason ES members can effectively live forever.
- The leader of Yamainu is the only one of them who lasts long enough against Akasaka near the end of Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Kai for him to get serious and reveal his true badassitude.
- On the other hand, his boss is just a regular woman. She just bought him and his men out.
- Averted in Hellsing. While Integra is skilled with swords and guns, she's nowhere near as powerful as either of the vampires under her command or her Battle Butler. Enrico Maxwell and Montana Max, despite commanding legions of Church Militant soldiers and Nazi vampires respectively, have little fighting ability at all.
- The daisoto (Fuhrer/King Bradley) in Fullmetal Alchemist. Justified by the fact that he's actually a homunculus with superpowers. Also Ling Yao and Mei Chan, children of the Emperor of Xing, are expert fighters, with Ling Yao taking on Bradley one handed while holding someone.
- And don't forget Olivia Milla Armstrong. Her troops' credo? "Survival of the fittest". While her group is probably the most badass people of all army, she tops all of them became the most badass general from all of the generals in Central circle.
- All State Alchemists are given the Rank of Major, which is a pretty high rank, and given what they can do, it seems pretty fitting for it to be applied to all of them.
- And then it gets subverted. (In Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, specifically.) All of the chief government officials are pansies who get killed by mooks that patient, trained soldiers can handle.
- Members of the royalty and nobility in Crest Of The Stars are obligated to service in the Imperial Navy. The higher one's rank, the greater one's responsibility; members of the royalty are at the top of the scale with many decades of required service.
- Code Geass subverts this trope and plays it straight. Humongous Mecha pilots in Britannia are called knights and those identified are always some level of nobility. Also there is Lady of War Princess Cornelia. Subverted however in that the ace pilots of the series (Kallen and Suzaku) hold only moderate rank and are not commanders in any sense.
- It's most notably subverted with Zero himself. Lelouch is an above-average pilot, but he's physically unimpressive, and ultimately gets his ass kicked by anyone with a name. He turns down the Black Knight's first Super Prototype, giving it to Kallen, noting he's the commander and she's the expert. Even when he does pilot Knightmare Frames, he sticks to ones that focus on long-range bombardment because he knows he doesn't have the skills for close-range fighting. Of course, his long range Knightmares have really big guns, so their kills are roughly equivalent.
- Same goes for Charles, who generally generally hangs out in the capital, while Cornelia handles the actual fighting. And Schneizel, who is an excellent commander, but never wields a gun (bar a single instance) or pilots a Knightmare Frame. On the other hand, even pacifist Euphemia can pilot a Knightmare, and in the DS game, is pretty decent at it, especially with one of the best weapons ever built by Britannia. Sadly, she doesn't keep it once you recruit her.
- Trinity Blood:You would think a mere Departmental Director would be a middle-aged-man-in-a-suit-with-a-gut type of character. However, if the department in question's the Department Of Inquisition, and the director in question is Brother Petros, that'd be the last mistake you'd ever make.
- The Meister Otomes (of which the Five Pillars/Columns are a subset) in Mai-Otome are vastly more powerful than the Corals and Pearls underneath them, getting all of the powerful weapons and Robes (and merchandise!). Such positions are usually held by heads of state or members of nobility. Natsuki, headmistress of Garderobe Academy, is also a Meister and one of the Pillars.
- Somewhat subverted in the Ruby & Sapphire chapter of Pokemon Special. While the eight element-master Gym Leaders of Hoenn form the "high council"-type organization that rules and protects the region, the guy actually calling all the shots has never been shown to have any battle prowess - or, for that matter, to own any Pokemon.
- Although there is some confusion on whether the Champion and Elite Four of Hoenn have any political clout, if they are totally independent from the Pokemon Association and the Gym system, or if they are a kind of last-resort peacekeeping squad under the Association's order.
- Riot Force 6 of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha operates on this trope, with their highest ranking officers being Persons Of Mass Destruction that hover around the S Rank. However, this trope completely collapses when the entire Space-Time Administration Bureau is taken into consideration, since non-powered individuals such as Regius and the founders of the Bureau are the ones in charge.
- See also: Lindy, captain of the Asura, is never shown fighting. But when she unfurls her wings and holds a dimensional tremor at bay, it lets her suboordinates take care of that.
- Lord Genome from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann manages to give a sound thrashing to and nearly defeats the heroes, something which almost none of his underlings came close to. When his mech Lazengann is ruined, he climbs out and beats Lagann with his bare hands, eventually ripping the arms off. One of his direct underlings, Thymilph who is himself (itself?) a leader of many, fatally wounds Kamina. The Anti-Spiral King is the one who has a mech large and powerful enough to fight the heroes' final form ridiculously huge mech equally.
- But deconstructed in the post-Time Skip human government. The officials are primarily old Team Dai-Gurren members, who showed their ability at asskicking in the war, but when it comes to governance they're generally incompetent. Simon in particular hates the job, the political crap, and would rather be back piloting Gurren Lagann. Rossiu is the only one who seems to thrive in the new order, he's actually good at politics and getting his policies implemented. The trouble is, those policies almost lead to disaster (see Alternate Character Interpretation for why). So the best asskickers got the highest authority, but proved to be totally unable to handle it.
- Averted in Full Metal Panic!: Mithril is led by military officers who let the privates and NCOs do all the fighting, like in real-life armies. Amalgam is a straighter example, as only people higher up in the ranks get to drive around in Lambda-driver-equipped Codarls — and the true masterminds have even better ones.
- Both played straight and averted in Giant Robo. The heads of the IPO and Big Fire that we see are all enormous badasses, boasting power beyond any of their underlings. However in an ironic twist they are all eventually handed their asses by two characters both less powerful and lower ranked than them, and who turn out to be the real Big Bad's. (A lot can be said for having a bigger gun than everyone else).
- Also played straight when we meet Big Fire himself, the true leader of the organization which shares his name. The mere sight of him is enough to fill his generals with absolute, paralyzing terror; no small feat considering that most of them are strong enough to decimate armies single handedly.
- The exorcists in D.Gray-Man are led by generals who earn their ranks by achieving a certain level of synchronization with their Innocence. Outside of the generals, however, the exorcists are not ranked by power, and there are also plenty of technical and ecclesiastical personnel with authority but no fighting ability.
- Dragon Ball is all over the place with this one. On the one hand, Freeza fits this to a T. But then, Emperor Pilaf, Commander Red, Dr. Gero, and Babidi are all aversions to this trope (with the latter 3 being killed off by their most capable underlings. Piccolo and Vegeta are interesting takes. When Piccolo was the "Great Demon King" (and for a little bit after) he was roughly comparable to the protagonist, Goku. Ditto Vegeta during his starkly evil "Prince of Saiyans" phase. But the further assimilated into the hero roster they became, the further from their heritage and titles they got, and the further behind our hero they fell. Piccolo, of course, has a shining moment where he is the strongest fighter present... AFTER FUSING WITH GOD. Vegeta, likewise, recaptures some former glory by magically reinstating his old Saiyan Prince persona.
- Utawarerumono is a source of both good examples and aversions. The protagonist and emperor Hakuoro is a badass fighter who can also turn into a giant monster. Samurai General Benawi is likewise among the best fighters in the series. Kuya, ruler of Kunnekamun, is a little girl with an unstoppable Humongous Mecha. However, the first emperor killed by Hakuoro (by Benawi actually) was a pathetic coward with no means of self-defense.
- Najica Blitz Tactics generally averts this - most of the time, Najica's target and main opponent is someone's Dragon - a Humaritt - while their 'masters' are utterly helpless in a fight. However, at the very end, they play it straight with a rare Mad Scientist example - Dr. Ren, creator of the Humaritts, displays superhuman physical strength, and goes Guns Akimbo with Golden Handguns! Okay, so maybe she's not on the same level as her Kill Sat-controlling, Gatling-gun-wielding Dragon... or is she?
- In the Naruto universe, the daimyo theoretically appoints the Kage ("shadow") of a village based on their fitness to lead. In reality, the Kage is almost always simply the most powerful ninja in the village. This is especially odd considering how little fighting a Kage actually does - most of their time is spent behind a desk, sending other ninjas out on missions or doing paperwork.
- It is implied that a Kage is chosen only from a certain class of ninja (as displayed when Tsunade and Jiraiya were the only qualified ninja for the position), but that this level of power is rare enough that only one or two people a generation are qualified.
- The in-universe logic behind this seems to be that the Kages are the last line of defense-they're kept away from the front lines except in the most dire of emergencies so the risk of losing their abilities is minimized.
- Possibly subverted with Akatsuki. Madara Uchiha, the founder of the organization, says that he has lost most of his power due to the wounds he sustained in his battle with Hashirama at the Valley of the End. On the other hand, we don't know how powerful he was before, and he's effortlessly eluded attacks by extremely powerful ninjas.
- there's actually some ideas given. While characters do one about how strong Madara was, it's known that he was never able to defeat the 1st Hokage, and there last fight left beaten and injured him so badly that he can no longer fight. This happened even though Madara had the Kyuubi aiding him. Not that the 1st Hokage was weak, but the 3rd held his own against him, the 2nd, and Orochimaru. Considering that, reports of his strength seem greatly exaggerated.
- True at the international level in G Gundam: Whoever wins the Gundam Fight — i.e., whichever nation can field the most dangerous giant robot piloted by the most badass martial artist — gets to rule the world for the next four years.
- None of the civilian mermaids we see in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch ever even get to fight, only the princesses.
- The manga version of Chrono Crusade both subverts this trope and plays it straight. Duke Daffau is the leader of the Pursuers (something like a demon military, police and FBI all in one), and renowned for being a powerful fighter—as Chrono says, "The best of the best!" But although he is shown to be very powerful, he's bested by another fighter (albeit partially because of superior tactics), the leader of the Sinners, Aion. There's quite a bit of evidence that Aion is the most powerful demon out there (although Chrono is close, if not equal, in power).
- Masaomi Kida in Durarara exemplifies this trope in bad way.
If there was a major flaw in Horada's plan, it would have been that he had completely underestimated Masaomi. Horada had dismissed Masaomi as an opportunist leader. But even if that was the case, the Yellow Turbans would still have had gathered around Masaomi for a reason - he was a strong fighter. He had probably taken on several gangs single-handedly by now.
- Black Jack 21 featured a particularly inexplicable example - a woman who had previously appeared to be nothing more than a trophy-wife with a pretty face, suddenly turned into a crack shot, hitting several small, remote targets with a handgun, under highly unfavorable circumstances. There's no indication that she ever had any combat- or firearms-training, but she DID just take over her father's Ancient Conspiracy Organization, so...
Board Games
- The board-game Stratego exemplifies this, as applied to an army: When two pieces meet, the highest-ranking piece wins. The Field-Marshal is basically unstoppable, unless he runs into The Spy... or steps on a mine, of course.
- To be specific, the Field-Marshal can only be killed 3 ways: Attacking another Field-Marshal (draw, both die), DEFENDING against a spy (Spy wins - it's the only time that the spy can attack someone and NOT die), or encountering a mine (obvious). Suffice it to say, if the Field-Marshal attacks a piece, the piece it attacks WILL be removed guaranteed.
- Both subverted and played straight in chess: The King, the most important piece on the board, is capable of little more than the pawn, but the Queen (The Woman Behind The Man, as it were) is the most powerful piece on the board.
- In
the original Chess older versions the Queen was even more useless than the King. She could only move one space and only DIAGONALLY. When they gave the Queen unlimited distance in all directions they called it "Madness Chess" because the woman was most powerful.
- In Yaquinto's Beachhead, a single Japanese commander has four times the firepower of a 10-man squad.
Comic Books
- Marvel's Kingpin is, on the surface, a tremendously fat man with a head for crime and a mean streak wider than he is. But he's also the leader of The Syndicate, and a Diabolical Mastermind besides, so he's got heavy-duty Charles Atlas Superpowers - enough to take out low-level heroes (and a room full of ninjas) in hand-to-hand combat; he could crush his nemesis Daredevil with his bare hands. Note that he does, in fact, work out, and some incarnations interpret his portly frame as being solid muscle.
- In a similar vein, Lex Luthor always keeps himself in excellent physical condition, and can at least competently spar with heroes without super-strength.
- These days, anyway. When first introduced, and right through the Golden and Silver Ages up until he came up with his first purple-and-green combat outfit, Luthor was overweight. Similarly, in his initial post-Crisis appearances, Lex was suffering the ravages of an over-lavish lifestyle. In both cases, after having his backside repeatedly kicked (literally and figuratively) by Superman, he wised up and shaped up.
- Not sure what the context on this one is, which may render it inapplicable, but standing by itself this
 seems to fit the bill.
- Context is that the "Reagan" getting shot is actually the Martian Manhunter. The real Ronnie enters in the last panel.
- Played... extremely bizarrely in one Captain America storyline, in which Cap takes on Reagan. Of course, Reagan has been turned into a lizard-monster.
- Funnily enough, inverted with The Authority. Kicking as much ass as they do (and from an inter-dimensional spaceship, no less) puts them in a position of great power, and makes the actual authorities very twitchy. Given that the team will not hesitate to snuff corrupt officials if it makes the world a better place, you can't blame them.
- Played up to an absurd degree in the backstories of the GI Joe comic book cast, which favorably compares each of the heroic fictional officers who'd go charging first into battle and prove their authority with asskicking to the pansy sort of military officers who'd just sit back and draw up battle plans (even if that's a far more realistic and sensible use of their skills).
- Darkseid doesn't rule over Apokolips because of charisma, he rules because he's the strongest and most evil God on a planet brimming with powerful, evil Gods. Even disregarding his Omega Beams he has the physical strength to put down anyone who may dare rise against him. And when Darkseid's father Yuga Khan briefly returned from his imprisonment in the Source Wall the latter quickly overthrew his son, thus upholding the trope.
- Also true for Odin, father of Thor and ruler of Asgard who up until his death was always ready to show exactly why he held that position whenever a challenge arose that his son could not defeat.
- In the generally disappointing, plot hole-ridden Nightcat, heiress/drug lord/real estate tycoon Amanda Gideon turns out to be a better fighter than four ninjas (whom the heroine beats without breaking a sweat) or her bodyguard, Mr. Krak. Also, she fights in what appears to be her underwear for some reason.
- In Iron Man, Tony Stark runs a multi-billion dollar company, and personally snuffs out bad guys with his suit.
Film
- In Equilibrium, Brandt fails to live up to his badass longcoat despite fighting Preston to a standstill in an earlier training match. By contrast, Vice-Counsel DuPont, the real leader of Libria, is a bureaucrat who seems harmless without his complement of bodyguards... but actually has Gun Kata skills almost on par with Preston himself and the ensuing final duel lasts longer than most of Preston's skirmishes with the Faceless Goons. Then again, there was foreshadowing in that DuPont is earlier glimpsed teaching a class of gun-kata students.
- In The Story Of Ricky the toughest opponent Riki fights in the prison is the warden because as everyone knows “The warden of any prison has to be the very best in kung-fu".
- In the Ultraviolet film, also directed by Kurt Wimmer, the government's leader Vice-Cardinal Ferdinand Daxus is the hero's most physically dangerous adversary. Justified or handwaved by the fact that he was one of the original lab technicians researching and infected by the hemophage virus and used the abilities it granted him to aid his rise to power.
- In the novelization of the film, this twist was ignored (probably due to the plot holes it creates), and Daxus's ability to fight evenly against Violet is attributed to standard Badass Normal skills, the fact Violet was already severely wounded after fighting through all of Daxus's guards, and some crafty cheating (using nightvision goggles to see after switching off the lights).
- The movie Air Force One, justified or handwaved by the fact that the President was a member of the military with an exceptional record. Being played by Harrison Ford doesn't hurt, either.
- In the Star Wars films, this is often justified. The Jedi order seems to be run by its most powerful members, and Sith lords are always superior to their underlings until a Klingon Promotion occurs. It also helps that the Force seems to nullify the performance affects of age, at least temporarily. Yoda, Mace Windu, and Palpatine are all the leaders of their orders as well as the toughest. General Grievous is also apparently the toughest "droid" (really he's a cyborg) of the droid army, having some Jedi training.
- Padme Amidala is a straight example though, at least in Episodes I and II. She has the same Improbable Aiming Skills as her daughter Leia, although Leia's probably helped by the Force. Padme's just a surprisingly good shot.
- Skipper, the penguin leader in Madagascar, pulls off some of their most crazy stunts himself.
- Jack Skellington in The Nightmare Before Christmas is King of the Pumpkin Patch, and thus more than a match for Oogy Boogy, even in the seat of his trap-infested powerbase.
- A lesser example, but apparently being Secretary of Defense in the live-action Transformers movie provided enough Bad Ass to try blowing away an alien robot with a shotgun.
- With Megatron, and indeed most other Decepticon leaders, they tend towards this since that's how they define their leadership. How Starscream lost his leadership in the animated movie fits in here.
- The leader of the Destrons (Decepticons in Japan) uses the title Emperor of Destruction.
- And of course, Optimus Prime. The one who took on three Decepticons (including Megatron) and beat the crap out of them, despite being outnumbered.
- In Sha Po Lang, the Triad boss Wong Po turns out to be even faster and tougher than The Dragon, his personal assassin Jack. Not only can he throw down with the main character, who can literally punch people stupid, and take him and two of his partners at the same time, but he can survive getting over-the-head body-slammed into a giant tower of beer bottles and drinking glasses and then stand up a minute later to throw the hero out the window. Of course, the guy's played by Sammo Hung, who is known for his kick-ass action roles in the Hong Kong scene.
- Played for laughs in Idiocracy. The President of the USA is a hulking pro-wrestler with a fondness for automatic weapons.
- Seen in the finale of xXx: State of the Union, where after easily subduing in hand-to-hand combat a few dozen marines, a couple squads of Elite Mooks, and a The Dragon Navy SE Al, the hero finds himself being outmatched by the 60 year old Secretary of Defense.
- In Men In Black 2, MiB leader Z, despite being a 70 year old administrator, nevertheless manages to deliver a rapid series of improbable flying kicks to the face of the main villain.
- Subverted in the climax of the film Wanted. Although Sloan is briefly shown to have the same superpowers as the other master assassins, he's too smart to actually confront the hero directly in a fair fight (the hero, for his part, is also too smart to fight fair).
- Partly subverted in Independence Day The president was a fighter pilot in the Gulf War, so he led the raid against one of the alien ships. He did get the first shot in, but missed for the final kill. He did provide covering fire for the man who did.
- In Curse Of The Golden Flower, the Emperor > you. Both in kung fu and magnificent bastardry.
- In Batman Begins, Batman utterly owns everyone he fights pretty much instantly, including (leading up to the final fight) 4 ninjas in full body armor who presumably have the same training and skills as he does. However, Ra's al-Ghul, the leader of the League of Shadows and Batman's Broken Pedestal mentor, is able to match Batman blow-for-blow and ultimately "wins" the fight, despite Batman wearing a high-tech suit of hardened combat armor, and Ra's wearing what's essentially very nice formal wear.
- Quantum of Solace ends with James Bond and Dominic Greene battling on a collapsing catwalk inside an exploding building which is also ON FIRE! Greene doesn't exactly do well, but he puts up a much longer and involving fight than you'd expect a 5-foot tall, physically unimpressive corporate suit to do so against the world's most famous British murder machine, especially considering how Bond dispatches mean-looking, highly-trained professional killers much more quickly on several occasions earlier in the film.
- Though to be fair, Greene also had an ax, and was pretty much out of his mind with rage, while Bond had nothing. While Bond is obviously the more skilled fighter, at least the cast tried to make it look like an even fight. But it's James Bond. Did anyone really have any doubts as to how the fight would end?
- General Miura from Ip Man throws down with three guys in his first appearance and takes them down without much fuss. Ultimately he is the only one who actually manages to land real hits on our hero.
- In Scanners, Revok is not only the leader of the evil scanner underground, but also one of the two most powerful scanners in the world - which is, of course, how he started the underground in the first place.
- At the climax of Cliffhanger, effete villain John Lithgow (!) proves to be a match for musclebound Sly Stallone.
- The film version of The Lord Of The Rings: In addition to the times the source material uses this trope, the fight with the Uruk-hai at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring shows the Fellowship effortlessly mowing down the Uruks, until the orc chief Lurtz shows up. Lurtz fatally wounds Boromir with his arrows, and he's only defeated after a drawn out, one-on-one fight with Aragorn, King of Gondor. Of course, Lurtz also had the Inverse Ninja Law on his side.
- Played painfully straight in Red Sonja. Nowhere in the preceeding scenes did the Evil Queen show any kind of martial skill, but when she and Sonja face off, it's a battle royale, apparently just because the film needed a cathartic climactic final fight.
- In Fist Of Legend, the Japanese general is an incredibly powerful martial artist.
- In Avatar Colonel Quaritch has his dropship severely damaged when Jake Sully throws a missile into a turbine. Despite this, and having his shoulder on fire, he climbs into a mech as the dropship spirals out of control, pats out the flames, and jumps out of the dropship to land safely as it crashes in a hulking flaming mass behind him. Half of this he does while holding his breath. Earlier in the film, he kicks open a door without an oxygen mask and unloads an assault rifle and a pistol into an escaping gunship. And finally, in the final battle he fights hand to hand (albeit in a mech) with two Na'Vi and one palulukan, and again a portion of this is done holding his breath.
- Justified in the sense that he was disillusioned to the "savages" and their world from the moment he arrived and spent the time here training knowing that every last living thing in the world was out to get him. Jake on the other hand being the idiot that he is, got lucky since he had the Avatar that allowed him to learn from the Navi what can and cannot kill you in the world. Given the track record, it is not hard to see why the Colonel kicked ass. He was Crazy Prepared.
- Frank D'Amico from Kick Ass. D'Amico's mooks are killed effortless by the dozens, but he manages the give the heroes a sound thrashing.
- We do see him training earlier in some martial art, and let's be fair, the hero is, in this case, a ten year old girl. Who was out of bullets. And knives.
- The bad guy (hight That Guy) is pretty much the only person who can challenge The Transporter in a one on one fight.
Literature
- Mostly played straight with the Valar and Maiar and quite a few Numenoran, Elven and Dwarven kings and other leaders in JRR Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings and The Silmarillion. However there is also a memorable subversion: Melkor/Morgoth was considered the highest and overall most powerful of the Valar, and Manwe, the Valars' leader after Morgoth went renegade, second to him - but Tulkas, who was not really good at anything except fighting (and feasting) was the only one who could kick Morgoth's ass.
- Morgoth was the greatest of the Valar, and Tulkas came to Arda afterward solely in order to help her other Valar against him. The other Valar combined could defeat Morgoth and drive him away, but not capture him; meanwhile Tulkas was Arda's version of Hercules, and could wrestle Morgoth into submission.
- At one point in The Silmarillion, one of the last elven princes from the second generation of elves decides he's had it with Morgoth and rides forth to call the devil out. He loses the fight, due to tripping, but Morgoth takes such a beating (leaving scars) in the process that he never leaves his home again, till the Valar come to drag him out in chains.
- Elven-kings were the most powerful of all the Elves; after all, Elves were immortal, and the kings were the strongest and wisest— particularly the Eldest ones. Also, Morgoth was very much weakened due to his obsession with material things. Elves were not created equal.
- In Lord of the Rings, those in highest authority are also the greatest warriors. Aragorn is the best human warrior alive, but still he's nothing like Elendil who was almost 8 feet tall, and able (with Gil-Galad's help) to wrestle with Sauron to the death at the end of the War of Last Alliance; likewise, Isildur was over 7 feet tall, and so terrifying that the orcs fled from him even after shooting him dead. Boromir was also the hardiest warrior in Gondor, being Prince of Minas Tirith, and Faramir was a close second. Even Denethor was a fell warrior, greater than his own knights— as was King Theoden, in the Battles of Helm's Deep and the Pelennor Fields. (Tolkien wrote elsewhere that leaders should fight in their own battles; meanwhile Denethor was a subversion of this, as he advocating that "wise" leaders use others to do their fighting for them).
- The moredhel (dark elves) of The Riftwar Cycle are tribal, war-like and live in a harsh, cold and barren land. A moredhel isn't considered an adult until they're a hundred years old, and they usually need to live another hundred before they're elegible for the position of clan chieftain - all while surviving in the cold amidst constant bloodshed and starvation, mind you. Thus, if you ever run into a moredhel chieftain, you better believe they're damn hard to kill.
- Justified in The Firebringer Trilogy, as the prince/princess of the unicorn herd is also their warleader in times of war (and they have considered themselves at war for over four hundred years).
- Subverted in one episode of the Horatio Hornblower series in which it is noted that Petty Officers could be Drill Sergeant Nasties, but that would be beneath Hornblower's dignity as an officer as well as above his physical capacity.
- In CS Lewis' The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Peter's one-on-one sword fight with King Miraz lasts much longer than his fight with Lord Sopesian immediately afterward.
- Additionally, earlier in the book, Edmund defeats Trumpkin the dwarf, a seasoned fighter, in a swordfight. While Edmund's intention may simply be to persuade Trumpkin that he (and, by extension, his older brother) are valuable allies to have during a war, the ultimate effect of Edmund's victory, and Susan's similar victory in an archery contest, is to convince Trumpkin that they are in fact the kings and queens of legend.
- In The Magician's Nephew, Jadis treats with contempt the notion that Uncle Andrew could be anything but a king: commoners are never magicians. This could be Asskicking Equals Authority, in view of her ruthless use of magic for power, but she treats it as this trope.
- Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts and leader of the Order of the Phoenix, is the only one who could kick Voldemort's ass in a duel.
- Averted elsewhere in the Harry Potter series, however. Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge was never shown to be an outstandingly powerful wizard. His successor Rufus Scrimgeour was undoubtedly better, having been the former head of the Aurors, the Ministry's special forces; however, his chronic limp may be a handicap in a fight — and anyway he was killed with relatively little struggle when the Ministry was taken over. Played relatively straight after the war, when Kingsley Shacklebolt is elected Minister, a powerful Auror who actually fought alongside the protagonists a few times and was assigned as personal protection for the British Prime Minister, lest he be magically dominated via the Imperius curse. Dumbledore himself was repeatedly offered the job of Minister, and he always turned it down; it was suggested that Voldemort may have wanted to take up the post earlier in his career, but he never did — though he controlled the acting Minister for most of a year.
- Played straight in the Urban Fantasy environment of the Nasuverse, at least when a character is involved in an organization. The heads of particular divisions in the Magi Association tend to be holding their position due to their overwhelming brilliance. Naturally, this means that the Lords of the Association are scarily powerful. On the other hand, you also have oddities like how the last person on Earth who can use the Unified Language is teaching in a random high school.
- Heavily justified in Starship Troopers. The main principle of the Mobile Infantry is "Everybody drops, everybody fights": all officers are promoted from enlisted ranks, and even generals are expected to be the first soldiers on the ground (although they have bodyguards to help keep the enemy riffraff away). Plus the higher-ups get command suits with both the speed of scout suits and weaponry and gear on par with if not superior to that of standard marauder suits.
- And to get the highest rank of Sky Marshal, one has to go through the ranks of both the Mobile Infantry and the Navy.
- Subverted in The Film Of The Book, when they find a general hiding in the freezer while exploring an abandoned fort. He's shown to be completely useless; he's probably suffering from shellshock after seeing his men get their brains sucked out. (This only happens in the movie.)
- While Klingon Promotions are not supported, an officer is proven to be incompetent if he lets the morale and/or his personal level of asskicking sink so low that his underlings would even think of attacking him and surviving the attempt.
- In Discworld, the Wizards (at least in the earlier books) are an example of this. Progression is by the time-honored "Dead men's pointy boots" system, and the wizards don't usually wait for them to get emptied naturally.
- Of the current cast Archchancellor Ridcully is possibly one of the most powerful combatants on the Disc, and the Patrician is a trained and rather skilled assassin.
- Although City Watch Commander Vimes is pretty tough, he's not an example because there are many stronger fighters in the lower ranks, many (but not all)) with superhuman powers.
- Played straight in that he's probably still the one many criminals fear the most. Also, despite Vimes' advanced age, he can still go toe-to-toe with Carcer, a known cop-killer/serial killer/psychopath.
- Although this is moreso his advanced intellect, skill and experience in comparison to the other characters in addition to not having any of the other member's weaknesses. Carrot is undoubtedly better than he is at everything but he can't play dirty (he lost against Wolfgang because of this), Angua is a werewolf but is hindered quite easily while Detritus despite being the strongest member of the watch, is hindered intellectually (unless it is cold) and can turn a situation from bad to worse. He plays dirty, goes out of his way to insure his own survival, thinks ahead of his opponent and just happens to ooze authority out of his arse. Against him, there are probably few matches which was why Vetinari promoted him in the first place.
- In full force in the Codex Alera series. Alerans have access to "furies," kind of like D&D elementals, which confer power over fire, water, air, earth, wood, and metal. Societal hierarchy is based on the power of one's furies, with Knights typically showing exceptional strength in one area, High Lords possessing amazing abilities in all areas (i.e. capable of causing conflagrations, flying, and possessing super strength and swordfighting skills), and the First Lord, well... he approaches Physical God status.
- Also you have Canim leaders Varg and Nasaug, two of the deadlist hand-to-hand combatants on the continent, and the Vord Queen, who is far more powerful than any of her spawn. Of course, since the Alerans are practically a Proud Warrior Race, the Canim are definitely a Proud Warrior Race, and the Vord are a Horde Of Alien Locusts with a Hive Mind centered in their queen, all of this makes a certain amount of sense.
- This trope is played with a lot in this series. Alera is in a 20-year succession crisis because the current First Lord has no acknowledged heir and he's getting old, but as we see during the series, he still has amazing power with furies in his own right. Societal hierarchy is not actually based on the power of one's furies, but is strongly influenced by it; for just one example, a bastard will generally have his parent's power with furies but only the status he is born into. The protagonist is considered a freak at first because he is unique in not having access to any furies, (though he gets some slight power at the end of the third book, he remains subpar through the fifth) and yet he eventually gets a great deal of authority because he's capable of awesomeness by analysis.
- The Senior Council in The Dresden Files. The governing body of wizards is comprised of the seven strongest wizards on the planet; the youngest and weakest, Ebenezar McCoy brought down a decomissioned Soviet satellite on an island full of vampires for revenge at the end of Death Masks, and the Merlin and the Gatekeeper stalled an entire army of Red Court vampires and Eldritch Abominations with a single ward during the events of Dead Beat. The Wardens are also ranked by badassitude, but since they're a somewhat military organization that needs everyone they can get their hands on, it's more justified.
- It's probably worth mentioning that the White Council as a whole is portrayed as self-righteous and backwards, so this isn't necessarily a good thing.
- Other example include the Sidhe queens, the Red King, and other similarly powered rulers. Mostly justified in that these are beings who have been alive for thousands of years or more and have had time to build and consolidate power, although people promoted to some of these positions (such as the Summer Lady) essentially immediately become a Person Of Mass Destruction.
- In James Thurber's The 13 Clocks, the duke trusts in his captain of the guard, who has only been defeated once. But a minion points out that the prince who is trying to marry his niece was that one defeat.
- The Chronicles of Prydain is full of royals who not only actually fight things, but tend to be totally awesome at fighting them. Of particular note are Prince Gwydion, King Smoit, King Morgant and King Pryderi, all feared and respected war leaders as well as being mighty warriors in their own right.
- High King Math seems to be a subversion, as he is very idealistic and peace-loving, and far too old to fight. However, in the final book he proves himself to be the most badass man alive by getting out of his deathbed to make a heroic final stand against the Death-Lord's army of undead minions. Unfortunately, as might be expected, he doesn't do too well.
- In A Song Of Ice And Fire, frequently the most powerful nobleman leading an army is also its more powerful swordsman. During the Dance of Dragons, the royal pretender Aemon Blackfyre was considered undefeatable with a sword. During Robert's rebellion, each side was lead by their strongest fighter: Robert Baratheon and Rhaegar Targaryen. After Robert killed Rhaegar in single combat and won the war, he was elected king. Also, the most powerful noble families breed most of the continent's best warriors. Loras Tyrell, the greatest jouster, Jaime Lannister, the greatest swordsman, and Eddard Stark, the greatest tactician, are all members of Great Houses.
- Justified in The Book Of The Named, Clan leaders can be challenged for their position by any Clan member, and thus must be good at fighting to stay the Clan leader.
- King Obould Many-Arrows. He becomes even more kickass after he Took A Level In Badass, to the point where he can fight Drizzt one on one.
- Starship Traveller, an interactive novel in the Fighting Fantasy series, has this. When in combat, non-security personnel have a penalty to their skill rating. The exception is you, the ship's captain. "Your own fighting skills are equal to your professional skills, as befits a true hero."
- Beowulf, from the epic poem of the same name, is an inversion. He's far more kickass than the local king, and becomes king after his amazing feats of badass in defense of Hrothgar's land. He still dies against a dragon.
- This is an unspoken assumption in Dune. When Baron Harkonnen learns that the guards escorting Paul and Lady Jessica have been killed, he asks who their rescuer may have been and his Mentat replies, "It was a clean, silent killing, my Lord. Hawat, perhaps, or that Halleck one. Possibly Idaho. Or any top lieutenant." Apparently, the Atredies couldn't possibly employ competent assassins without giving them high ranks, and no ordinary soldier would be able to manage a clean, silent kill. Besides, isn't Hawat, like, a hundred?
- Grand Admiral Thrawn doesn't fight anything. He's The Strategist. He watches everything, plans, and gives orders; he's got to be highly intelligent, but there's no sign of him being physically adept, and no one knows how old he is or if his species is more or less powerful than humans are. Track down the Thrawn Trilogy Sourcebook, a supplement for West End Games' now-defunct Star Wars RPG, and you see that his physical stats are pretty damn good, better than any of the other bridge officers', better than his counterparts in the
New Republic Rebellion, better than almost any of the others who don't actually, physically, fight.
- Other parts of the Star Wars Expanded Universe prove him to be really good with a blaster, and he can move in armor. He impersonates Jodo Kast, a Palette Swap of Boba Fett, and actually makes Kast seem cool.
- In Outbound Flight, we see him board a slaver ship to lead his men into battle. While he has the crew of his ship backing him up, it's pretty obvious that he's cowing his opponents through sheer chutzpah.
Live Action TV
- This seems to be the case in Star Trek. The high-ranking main characters (who, more often than not, are officers in the virtually pacifist Federation Starfleet) all seem pretty handy in a punch-up. Kirk's martial arts "skills" are legendary, and at various times he takes on big lizard guys and genetically engineered supermen. It's very noticeable in Star Trek Deep Space Nine, where the crew of the eponymous space station regularly kick the asses of Klingons and Jem'Hadar when it comes to a hand-to-hand brawl (Sisko's Q-punch has to rank pretty far up, too). Justified for Dax and Worf, maybe (who at least have the martial arts credentials to back up what we see on screen), and Kira as well (she spent fourteen years fighting for her life in the Bajoran Resistance, what did you think would happen?) and Starfleet training is pretty well-rounded, but where did Sisko learn to use a bat'leth? (Probably from Curzon Dax, the Federation ambassador to the Klingons.)
- Speaking of Klingons, there's the Next Generation episode where Worf is trying to defend his family honor, and his second is taken out. As a replacement he chooses not a seasoned Klingon warrior, not a fellow security officer, not the clearly able-bodied Riker, but old, bald Captain Picard. Picard never gets in a physical battle in that episode, but Worf was either crazy or trusted him to hold his own if it came to that. And he may be right; in other episodes Picard has displayed capabilities much greater than his age would indicate.
- "Sins of the Father?" He gets jumped by three Klingons and fatally stabs two of them before help arrives.
- This may partially be because Patrick Stewart is no slouch himself. Go rent Excalibur, which was a break out film role for both him and Liam Neeson, and check him out in the armor. Or I, Claudius for that matter. The man may have gotten older but he he looks like he could take Riker in a fist fight. Pragmatic Adaptation of the actor, perhaps.
- One could argue that all Star Fleet officers would be likely to have a myriad of skills because, in Roddenberry's future, you don't "need" to do anything and do what you do in order to improve yourself as a person. If you were given full freedom to do anything, especially with a holodeck, you'd probably be in great shape and know some very exotic martial arts. Sulu was into fencing, Riker was into "Anbo-jitsu" (that blind stick fighting thing he did with his dad), and we see several other officers playing difficult sports. Things like that would make you pretty handy in a fight.
- Also consider that self-defense was pretty much required training at the Academy. In one of the novels, a class is taught covering not only human but Klingon and Vulcan martial arts (pacifists they may be, but any culture that thought up the Nerve Pinch is pretty dangerous).
- Played straight in an episode of CSI New York. A company had training sessions for its higher ups. Two of them beat each other, two of them got into a fight at a pool hall so heated they were running on the ceiling, and one of them assassinated a man by hanging from a tree and doing an upside down Diagonal Cut through the man's neck. The head stayed on until the cops came.
- On Heroes, the 12 founders of The Company are described as having been very powerful superhumans, although the show has been very vague as to what the exact power of many of them were.
- This seems to be the case with the Wraith in Stargate Atlantis. The basic Mook troopers go down just like any human after a burst of P90 fire. The "officer"-type Wraith can take a handful of pistol rounds and keep on coming. The Wraith "General" from Sateda was strong enough to effortlessly toss Proud Warrior Race Guy Ronan around like a rag doll, and the Wraith "Uber Queen" from Submerged ate a full clip of P90 fire and kept on coming.
- While we're on the subject of Stargate, Colonel Jack O'Neill came out of retirement and promptly went to Abydos and picked up where he left off in personally f'ing up Jaffa.
- Speaking of Jaffa, Teal'c was the First Prime, translation: the Head Jaffa in Charge for Apophis. Thus it makes sense when as the series progresses he's laying waste to hordes of Jaffa all by himself. And his kills include other first primes as well as System Lords.
- Colonel Samantha Carter may very well be the Baddest Chick in two galaxies.
- The few times General Hammond ends up in a fight of some kind, he shows exactly why he's in command of the SGC.
- Ben from Lost seems to have elevated to this status during season 4. Added to the fact he's the Magnificent Bastard he was in Seasons 2 and 3, in Season 4 he is the one who takes out Keamy, that season's Big Bad.
- Doctor Who: The Emperor Dalek, and any Daleks Supreme, are bigger and scarier than other Daleks, although this is mostly because they have bigger and scarier travel machines. Their actual combat capabilities are never shown.
- In 24 the villains get deadlier the higher up the villain authority ladder you go.
- Deka Master/Shadow Ranger from Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger/Power Rangers SPD. Seriously.
- Alias plays this trope fairly straight. While the mooks Sydney/Vaughn/other agent fights are easily deterred, usually the Big Bad/episode mini-Bad has some freaking sweet skills.
- And in the later seasons, when Jack became head of APO, the trope took effect. Check out the episode "Nightingale".
- Battlestar Galactica. Both Admiral Adama and Colonel Tigh are capable of some serious butt-kicking, as seen in The Mutiny episodes. President Roslin on the other hand, while quite ruthless, only handles a weapon on one occasion. And she manages to miss at point-blank range.
- On Ultimate Force, Colonel Aidan Dempsey reliably kicks a lot of arse when called upon, most notably in the episodes "Dead Is Forever", "Never Go Back" and - particularly - "Charlie Bravo". In the latter, he strides through a gunfight, casually taking one-handed potshots at rebels, while exhorting his local counterpart to "Pretend you're an officer and get your men in order!"
- WWE chairman Vince McMahon is frequently booked as a fairly strong wrestler, and is usually the favorite in matches featuring him against anyone below main-event level. Partially justified by the fact that McMahon is actually a very muscular person in real life.
- Subverted in an episode of The Sandbaggers where the head of the Secret Intelligence Service, Neil Burnside, "James bloody Bond" - is mugged by some hoods while walking about late at night.
- Just about every ruler from the 1998 Merlin series, including Uther, Arthur, and most impressively, Vortigern, who is aging and past his prime but still a force on the battlefield.
Mythology
- Many of the kings and rulers in Greek mythology were themselves formidable warriors. One of the most famous examples is The Iliad, where Idomeneus, Menelaus, Ajax, Diomedes, Agamemnon, Achilles, Patroclus, Odysseus, Philoctetes, Hector, in short almost all the major warriors are kings or princes of some sort.
- And Zeus, king of the gods, is sometimes suggested to be the most powerful one as well. He's the only one who able and/or willing to stand up against Typhon the Terrible, anyway.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons And Dragons, being level-based, produces this given half an opportunity.
- In GURPS Goblins, something like this is in place as a game mechanic: according to the rules which govern the late Georgian setting, differences in social status affect combat rolls, to reflect divine favoritism and the natural order of things.
- In d20 Modern, a character's rank is usually tied to the character's level.
- For that matter, all skills in d20 games are tied to level - so a well-trained doctor, for example, will automatically be a better fighter than a Marine right out of boot camp.
- In the pseudo-Japanese fantasy setting of Rokugan, for the game Legend of the Five Rings, for over a thousand years the Imperial dynasty has ruled by divine mandate. And it was not the Emperor's job to be the greatest fighter, but instead to be the wise ruler and source of all honor and authority. And even changes in the ruling dynasty have been only by the will of and with the blessing of the gods, not by either war or combat or anything else. At least, not until now, where the game line has suddenly decided to choose the next Imperial dynasty by having the gods come down bodily just as the chief villain of the setting has finally won and utterly nullify his victory by declaring the Mortal Kombat tournament.
- And then they subvert the entire point by declaring the winner to be an Empress who couldn't cut her way out of a balsa wood box with a masterwork katana, because she showed "proper spirit". Well goodness, if that was all it took, why hold a tournament in the first place?
- Exalted. The Solars were made to be the best at everything, and were given the right to rule the world, with the Lunars and Sidereals below them and the weaker but far more numerous Dragon-Blooded below them. In fact, nearly every faction in the setting follows this rule, with the higher-Essence characters being the leaders.
- Battle Tech uses this trope in a surprisingly restrained way. As the Inner Sphere is the feudal system In Space, most Great House leaders are accomplished Mech Warriors. Some aren't, being better at diplomacy and/or magnificent bastardry, but your average Prince, Archon or Coordinator is generally among the most effective Mech Warriors out there. The restraint comes from the fact that 1) aforementioned leaders all get the best of training, equipment and backup, and 2) there are plenty of non-royalty Inner Sphere Mech Warriors who would easily defeat anyone short of a Katrina Steiner, Ian Davion or Takashi Kurita in single combat. And that's not even considering the Clans.
- Built into the system in the Warhammer and Warhammer 40000 universes - higher-ranking units are always tougher than their basic counterparts, with the Emperor Karl Franz being one of the most nasty heroes in the Warhammer universe. With most armies in either game, this is justified with better training, magic or Applied Phlebotinum, but in other cases — like the regular-human Imperial Guard or Empire armies — it's really hard to justify why army officers are better shots than the armies' dedicated marksmen or special ops, and able to absorb more damage than Ork Nobs or Powered Armor-wearing Space Marines.
- Possibly the
king Emperor of this trope is the God Emperor of Mankind, who may or may not be a Physical God and defeated the vessal of all FOUR of the Chaos Gods. Unfortunately, he was mortally wounded and put on a permanent life support system called the Golden Throne, but still literally keeps the Imperium together by maintaining the Astronomican with his own power (and many pskyer sacrifices), a psychic beacon which allows faster than lightspeed travel - without which, the Imperium's worlds would fall into confusion and be easy pickings by a tenacious enough invader (or many other invaders...) with no way to work together. Did I mention the Golden Throne produces a metabolism product which is used to make an Anti Magic grenade called the Psyk-out grenade? Yes, you heard that right, The Emperor's shit kills psykers.
- It could be just about justified by the fact that high-ranking Imperial officials do have access to advanced biological and technological upgrades (not of the same order as the Space Marines, but still) and they will have taken part in many campaigns to achieve their rank. Considering the extreme danger of the Warhammer 40000 battlefields, a soldier who survives long enough to attain high rank probably accrues a lot of combat skills, and a sheer, stubborn tenacity to survive.
- Ork hierarchy is literally sorted by size, so it's completely sensible for Da Warboss to be the biggest murder machine on the battlefield for that army. Some relatively philosophical Orks (and the bar is very low here) have reflected on how unclear the human chain-of-command is, because we're "all 'bout da same size."
- Works both ways for Orks: since their culture (for lack of a better word) and chain of command is based on liberal ass-kickings, the physically strongest Orks tend to lead the rest. For a given value of "lead", of course. More like prod them in a general direction. However, because Ork beliefs tend to kick the normal laws of physics in the jollies and reshape them in proper Orky ways, and the belief that "da boss is da strongest an' da meanest" is held by every single Ork in the warband (after all, if he wasn't, he wouldn't be da boss, QED), a high ranking Ork actually becomes taller and stronger over time because they is da boss.
- This is actually built into the biology of the Orks: The more asskicking the Ork does, the more praise he gets from other Orks. The more praise he gets, the more he physically grows (akin to puberty, but happening every time he kicks ass), which in turn leads to more asskicking. So Orks gain Authority by Asskicking, and Asskicking by Authority. Go figure.
- Magic The Gathering varies with its use of the trope, usually depending on creature or organization. It's rare for the highest-ranked ruler in charge of a race or faction to be the most physically powerful, but it does happen—the three legendary Slivers, for example, are all much bigger than even the largest of the rest of the species.
- Let's also not forget Lord Konda, who can become bigger than the average dragon, and can't be killed no matter how much damage he takes.
Video Games
- Strategy games often make leader units and campaign characters stronger fighters than regular troops.
- In Streets Of Rage 2, you have to fight your way through Mecha Mooks, monsters, and The Dragon - Shiva, legendary martial artist - to get to Mr. X. He's just a big dude in a business-suit, but he's nonetheless tougher and more dangerous than any of those preceding him. No small part of this, however, is the fact that he packs an assault rifle, but even close-in, he's no slouch.
- In John Woo Presents Stranglehold, the final boss is Mr. Wong, the head of the notorious Dragon Claw syndicate. He's a short, balding, wrinkled guy, but that doesn't stop him from carrying around a huge sniper-rifle with one hand — and he can absorb more bullets than Dapang, his hulking, tattooed bodyguard, who was seen dual-wielding shotguns.
- In the western-themed LucasArts videogame Outlaws, the final boss is, in all appearances, just another desperado. But since he's the leader of the gang, you will need a Gatling-Gun to take him down. [[spoiler:When he stumbles into ending Not Quite Dead, The main character's daughter shoots him with the basic pistol
- Used freely, like most tropes relating to superheroes and supervillains, in the City Of Heroes and City Of Villains MMO. Leaders of villainous groups are classified as "Archvillains", and because of this, they automatically require a large, well-coordinated team of superheroes to take 'em down.
- Averted with The Center, leader of the Council. The two missions where he actually appears he doesn't fight... because he's somewhere around 120 years old, and in spite of his rank as the leader of the Council, one of the largest paramilitary groups in City Of Heroes, he has no real combat abilities. Instead, he calls down the entire chain of command on you in the first of these, then summons several of his elite guards to fight against a hero ambush in the second. All of this while nonchalantly reading a newspaper.
- In Crusader: No Regret, when you finally cross paths with the Corrupt Corporate Executive who's had it in for you since the previous game... surprise, surprise, he seems to have acquired a Humongous Mecha and is blocking your exit. Not that he's particularly good at piloting it, but...
- In the classic FPS Wolfenstein 3D, several of the final bosses take advantage of this, including Dr. Schabbs (one of the rare examples of a Mad Scientist using this trope), at least one Nazi General, and of course, Adolf Hitler, who naturally takes this to extremes: Not only has he somehow acquired an armored battle-suit mounted with quadruple gatling-guns, once you've blasted it enough, he pops out — and continues to fight, with Gatling Guns Akimbo, while ignoring the hail of bullets you're throwing at him.
- Not to mention the fake Hitlers you meet before you face him, which have a unique weapon: Flamethrowers. Nasty, nasty, nasty...
- The bizarre Japan-only Xbox game Metal Wolf Chaos has this as its central premise. You play as the president of the United States in a super-powerful Humongous Mecha trying to liberate the U.S. following a military coup led by the vice president who, naturally, also has a Humongous Mecha.
- In the Halo series, Covenant Sangheili (aka Elites) "Zealot" Ship Masters and "Ultra" Spec Ops Commanders have shielding so powerful that Legendary-difficulty ones can withstand a Plasma Pistol charged shot, which instantly destroys the shields of any lesser Elite. They usually also pack one-hit-kill Energy Swords. This is Justified as Elite promotions are based almost entirely on how many foes they killed and, by extension, how much experience they have on the battlefield, and by the fact that the only thing getting better is their equipment. And supporting mooks (Grunts following the Spec Op Elites) have this nasty tendency to carry around fuel rod cannons).
- Brutes work the same way, but just more brutal; never mind the kill score, if they topple the pack chief, they get his seat and shiny helmet along with tough shielding (the Elites still stay on top in that aspect), rounded off with a hammer. Yes, a gigantic more-often-than-not OHKO hammer. On higher difficulties, even being licked by its impact shockwave hurts like crap.
- Given that these are the leaders of combat troops rather that military strategists it's not at all surprising that they're skilled and better equipped than the less elite troops. The Prophets, true leaders of the Covenant, avert this entirely, being frail and barely capable of fighting. A memorable boss fight against one of them consisted of dodging the feeble gunfire from his hoverchair before jumping onto the chair. Where the guns can't hit you.
- Emperor Palamecia from Final Fantasy II, the Final Boss, a master sorcerer who ends up taking over Hell itself and absorbing its power. They never make clear if he's Emperor because he's badass, or if he's badass because he's Emperor.
- Final Fantasy IV The After Years, of the twenty-one main playable characters, eight are royalty, and another is brother to a king. In the world of Final Fantasy IV, Asura and Leviathan rule the Feymarch, Bahamut is King of Eidolons, and Odin is the former King of Baron, so the four highest ranking Summons are all royalty too.
- In the case of Final Fantasy V, four of your five party members are royalty, and of those four, one is a badass alien king and one becomes queen by default partway through the story.
- While you never actually fight him, Emperor Gestahl of Final Fantasy VI is able to cast high-level fire spells that are only available to the party at the very end of the game. Unfortunately for him, however, when he actually tries to use them, it is revealed that his Psycho For Hire Omnicidal Maniac Kefka has found a way to make them ineffective. Oops.
- Later on you discover the personal "secret treasure" he was keeping in reserve, and it turns out to be an item that grants (among other things) most of the high-level fire spells he is shown using earlier in the game.
- Kefka himself starts out as a subversion. He is a wimp who runs away from you when you face him for the first time. It's only after he starts infusing himself with more and more magic that he becomes a threat beyond his military power and complete lack of morals.
- On the good side of things, we have Edgar, king of Figaro, Gadgeteer Genius, and all-around asskicker. His brother Sabin counts too, though he had forsaken the throne and fled the kingdom. Celes is a former Imperial general, Cyan is the retainer to a king, and Guest Star Party Member Leo is an Imperial general too.
- This is the only explanation for Palmer from Final Fantasy VII. An obese and incompetent member of the Shinra Board of Directors, the party gets a memorable fight against him where he survives a good few minutes of being hit by machine guns and giant swords before getting run over by a truck.
- Rufus Shinra is an exception to this rule, however. He is the President of the Shinra Company but is actually one of the weakest bosses in the game, compared to his Humongous Mecha-riding military directors and his mutating mad scientist.
- On the other hand, he did manage to fight Cloud (admittedly with help from his pet) while using a double barreled shotgun (with one hand!) and escape with only a few injuries (while grabbing onto a helicopter with one hand, holding the gun, and presumably being injured). His stats are more a matter of gameplay rather than story (Reno also had fairly low stats when you first fought him). And during his encounter with Kadaj he managed to shoot between the latter's fingers while falling down the side of a building.
- Sephiroth, the Big Bad of the game, plays this straight as he used to be Shinra's General and was designed to be perfect for the position.
- Final Fantasy VIII, although they are several shades of power less than a president or royalty, your party members include a terrorist splinter cell leader, a teacher who is in charge of watching the rest of the party early on, and the main character becomes head of his military academy partway through the game.
- Final Fantasy XI has examples for pretty much every single nation. The final mission battles for each of the three starting nations has you fighting alongside a major political figure: Prince Trion, Captain Volker, and minister Ajido-Marujido. Archduke Kam'lanaut is a bit of a subversion, though: while he is a major storyline boss, it's his "little" brother Eald'narche who's the real Big Bad.
- In Final Fantasy XII almost any figure of considerable power is a noble:
- First the Judges Magister. This is justified by the backstory, since they are both the highest-ranking officers of the Imperial Army AND handpicked by the emperor for their martial skills to be his guardians, officers, and advisors.
- Then, we have Ashe and Vayne, two mighty warriors and heads of state with enough backstory to justify their power. Vayne spent his life trying to survive Archadia's murderous politics, led his country's army against two neighboring countries, both of which give him enough experience to be a credible Magnificent Bastard. Ashe has led the Resistance for two years prior to exploring three continents, battling men and monsters, taking control of Scions, and finally, successfully crossing blades with Vayne.
- And finally, we have Cid and Larsa: Cid is an impressively dangerous researcher, smart enough to earn the respect of the borderline eldritch being Venat. Venat teaches him how to create artificial nethicite a powerful supernatural resource. He is the most influential man in the Empire after Vayne's coup. Larsa, by contrast, is a 13 years old boy skilled both with the sword and interlocking machinations, who uses his talents to stop the world war his brother planned to use to "free" mankind from the Occuria. Experimentally-enhanced fighters rising in rank and even gaining political powers is believable, and Cid's abilities can be accepted since they adhere to the rules of the world's magic, but a pre-teen able to outwit senators, emperors and even gods? House Solidor must have some interesting genetic material.
- Final Fantasy XIII has Galenth, the leader of Cocoon, and also one of the main antagonists who is secretly the leader of the fal'Cie of Pulse.
- Final Fantasy Tactics plays with this. Non-nobility characters can have high base stats and be just as effective as some of the unique characters, but chances are the characters with the cool, unique classes have a title backing them up. Ramaza's father was a high ranking noble and purportedly a beast in combad. "Thunder god Cid" is of equal rank, and his skills are apparent. Agrias, Beowulf, Ramza's brothers, and others have unique classes to go with their nobility, and Delita only acquires a unique class after he moves up on the social ladder.
- In Fire Emblem, almost without exception, commanding officers are at a significantly higher level than their subordinates.
- The main characters, all members of the nobility (sans Ike) and the leaders of your army, usually have the potential to become the most powerful characters available.
- Justified in Path of Radiance for the laguz and Daein. The laguz earn their ranks and respect based on strength, meaning the kings really can kick everyone else's ass. Likewise, Daein's King Ashnard lets any decent warrior become a knight, and promotions are based on talent.
- Also justified in FE4, were members of nobility had holy blood which gives bonus % growth and the ability to use Legendary Weapons.
- In FE7 and FE8, the antagonists had Dark Druid and Necromancer as their classes, respectively. However, the antagonist of FE6 doesn't need Dark magic, for he is a King. And he's just as strong as his other GBA antagonists, if not stronger.
- An interesting version of this trope is present as simply occupying a throne gives out lots of bonuses and makes characters more powerful than a fort ever could.
- Fatal Fury: Geese Howard, at first, seems to be your run-of-the-mill crime boss. Once you actually fight him, though, you can easily see why he is where he is. After all, he was the very first SNKBoss.
- Fatal Fury 2 brings us Wolfgang Krauser, Geese's half-brother and the latest in a line of bodyguards to various European nobility. He has his own bodyguard, Lawrence Blood, but Krauser really doesn't need him: he's strong enough on his own.
- Likewise, Rugal Bernstein has two secretaries, Vice and Mature, who also function as his bodyguards. Like Krauser, Rugal doesn't really need them, as he once took out an entire company of Heidern's troops before beating Heidern himself to a pulp. Then he killed Heidern's family for the lulz. It was also implied at one point that he had beaten both Geese and Krauser one-on-one.
- Kain R. Heinlein from Garou: Mark of the Wolves. His Super Mode is unlimited, and his bodyguard, Grant, is also an SNK Boss. He's Geese's (and Krauser's) brother-in-law... there's something about that family...
- And Mr. Big of Art Of Fighting ain't no slouch either. He's the head of a Southtown crime syndicate, and wields two Kali Stick-things which he uses to good effect, not only for smashing heads open, but he can create Power Wave-style energy blasts from them. Add a huge, imposing body build to that mix and you have the perfect Don.
- Years earlier in the Samurai Shodown universe, we have Gaoh, the leader of a rebel army. He is dangerous, wielding a deadly looking polearm. We haven't even GOTTEN to the fact that he can turn into a demon mid battle.
- In Starcraft, Terran units have ranks going strictly by unit power/tier. Space Marines are Privates, Firebats are Corporals, and so on. By contrast, character units are a lot stronger than their normal versions but their rank is plot-dependant (and not particularly high in most cases).
- Perhaps one of the more ridiculous examples is the videogame adaption of Tomorrow Never Dies. In the movie, the primary villain is merely a Corrupt Corporate Executive and doesn't have any exceptional physical abilities. In the game, though, he's one of the final bosses and is able to take about a dozen grenades to the face before he dies.
- In Musashi: Samurai Legend, the villains are the Corrupt Corporate Executive Board of Directors of Gandrake Enterprises. All of them, including President Gandrake himself, are endgame-level bosses.
- Captain Price in Modern Warfare, apart from being literally unkillable for the most of the game, is usually the first one to dash into the next room full of mooks and clear the way for his team, including the PC. He also does some impressive tricks when subtlety is required.
- However, the three main villains avert this trope. Captain Price kills Khaled Al-Asad in a cutscene after you locate his safehouse. Victor Zakhaev kills himself to avoid being captured after you corner him on a rooftop. Finally, you kill Imran Zakhaev with a single gunshot.
- Imran Zakhaev may not be such an aversion, considering that he survives an impact from a high caliber rifle blowing his arm off...
- Played straight with General Shepherd in Modern Warfare 2, where it turns out that the general is capable of completely whooping both Captains Mactavish and Price in a stand up fight. The two only survive because the half dead Soap manages to pull a knife out of his gut and throw it into Shepherd's eye as he's distracted while beating Price to death. Keep in mind that Shepherd has just survived a helicopter crash (whereas Soap and Price "merely" fell down a waterfall).
- Also, Price demonstrates his extreme badassitude in MW2 when he shoots down a combat helicopter with an antipersonnel sniper rifle while dodging a minigun ON A FRICKING RUBBER BOAT [+ IN THE MIDDLE OF A MOUNTAIN RIVER+ ]. He also has some mad hacking skills, as he hijacks a Russian nuclear submarine and rigs one of its missile to detonate exactly above Washington on his own under extreme time pressure.
- The Simpsons beat-em-up video game has this, too, sort of. The final bosses are a bomb-crazed Smithers who can smack you across the screen with impunity, and C. Montgomery Burns in a breakaway huge mecha. Then again, once out of it, he shows his true strength—which is on par with Maggie's.
- In Lost Odyssey, Prince/King Tolten wields an unusual variant of this. He's a bit of a wuss, and compared to the two Immortal melee-fighters, his stats aren't impressive. However, BECAUSE he's a member of the Royal Line of Uhra, he's got access to unique and powerful accessories, weapons and skills. Including the Ultimate Hit and the Age of The King. Once you put those things together, he actually ends up being a fighter on par with the thousand-years-old main character.
- Unless the Thousand-Years-Old main character learns the "Royalty" skill and takes the King's sword for his own.
- Well, it's not that unusual. Rich people having better stuff is a trope, after all.
- The Star Wars video game Knights of the Old Republic had this in the villain of Admiral Saul Karath, the number two on the evil hierarchy under Darth Malak. When you fight him on the bridge of his flagship, it takes a whole arsenal of high-powered weaponry to take him down. Not bad for a guy whose reputation was as a tactical genius. Of course, Darth Malak himself is difficult and justified in being so.
- Don't forget Darth Revan, the Dark Lord of his time.
- Averted within Front Mission 3. There are commanding officers among your enemies, but that doesn't necessarily make them stronger, although they do tend to have better training. There are even a few battles where the strongest Mecha on the field will be a lower-ranked individual or a non-voluntary test pilot, or even standard enemy pilots. Used straight by the time you get to Front Mission 4, where only higher ranking individuals get a name, and always come with extra abilities.
- Who could forget Mayor Mike Haggar of Final Fight fame, who took a somewhat more direct approach than most to reducing the city's crime rate? To be fair, he was a wrestler and street fighter before becoming mayor. And after, too...
- ...Or the crime syndicate leader and boss of the same game, Belger? He has the largest health bar of anybody in the game, and has a rapid-fire crossbow. Oh, and he's invulnerable for most of the fight with him. And he starts the fight in a wheelchair... which is entirely to lower your guard ("would you hit a man in a wheelchair?" style). Once you hit him enough, it breaks and he gets up.
- In Max Payne 2, the "boss" criminals (Kaffman, Cowboy Mike, and Big Bad Vlad Lem can all survive more bullets than the standard mooks, but the difference is barely noticeable. Kaffman has something like 4x as much health as a standard mook, but that just means he goes down after several shots instead of just a couple. Likewise, Vlad only has somewhat more health than a normal enemy, but you fight him in an elaborate Puzzle Boss arena.
- Alejandro Sosa from Scarface: The World is Yours, the powerful drug lord Tony has spent the whole game building up to vengeance on, takes multiple rounds from the otherwise-One Hit Kill Desert Eagle and gives as good as he gets. Enemy gang leaders usually pack better heat than their underlings too. Of course, you as Tony kick far more ass than any of your innumerable red shirt mooks.
- In Crysis, it takes almost a dozen sniper rifle shots to the face to bring down minigun-wielding North Korean leader General Kyong. Granted, he's wearing a nanosuit, but that still doesn't explain how he can survive headshots without wearing a helmet, or the fact he survives much more damage than regular nanosuit-wearing enemy soldiers.
- Played straight in Super Robot Wars, but usually justified since higher-ranking officers get more powerful humongous mecha to fight with. An example of a good character using this trope, however, is Ring Mao, CEO of Mao Industries. Using a Deadly Upgrade Real Robot? Check. Ungodly stats? Check. Taking on a small army in OG1 single-handedly? Check.
- The entire Dynasty Warriors series operates off of this trope. Ordinary soldiers are cannon-fodder. Only enemies ranked Lieutenant or higher are any sort of a challenge, while master Strategists like Sima Yi and Zhuge Liang kick ass with the best of them. The Kings of the Three Kingdoms are, of course, packing boss-level HP whenever you meet them on the battlefield. This is particularly noticeable in various scenarios that allow you to face them before they became kings at much lower power. All player-characters are ranked Lt. General at the very least, and their rank increases as they level up. All of the titles you can attain have 'General' in it somewhere, though.
- Lord British is Nigh Invulnerable in most of the Ultima games. There's usually a way to kill him, though.
- In Warhammer Online, this trope is taken to its logical end point; the ONLY difference between new characters and end game characters is their rank. Naturally rank allows access to better items and skill, but the fact is that a newly minted mage has the same "power" as one who can duel a greater daemon and win.
- Command And Conquer: Red Alert 3 has Emperor Yoshiro piloting the Super Prototype of the King Oni in the Soviet Campaign.
- Valkyria Chronicles uses this partially. On the side of The Empire, battlefield commanders (probably sergeants or at least corporals) are signified by a red armor, and invariably have more HP and a better chance to dodge bullets. They also hit better, and (somehow) do more damage. However, while your own corporals and sergeants starts out pretty strong - and remain so for the entire game - several of them are eventually surpassed by some of the enlisted troops. Your second-in-command, however, is probably the most powerful unit around, and you yourself (a squadron commander ranked Lieutenant) gets to drive around in a Super Prototype tank. The truest use of this trope, however, falls to the trio of Imperial Commanders leading the invasion under the direction of Evil Prince Maximillian. Two of them pose impressive challenges by having access to unique vehicles, as does Maximillian, and the third, well, she just kicks unholy amounts of ass. And finally, at the very end, Maximillian shows that being ranked prince gives you access to some really nifty toys, and singlehandedly goes up against your entire squadron, including two tanks.
- In The Witcher both a hunched over old man and a drunk (who in the preceeding cutscene is implied to be able to kill a warrior only because he was sleeping) can take more hits then most of the randomly spawning monsters in the chapter, for no reason other then that they are pillars of the community and (one of the possible) final fight in the chapter. While the fight is not hard by any means, the necessity of this trope is questionable; they are preceeded by a much more climactic boss.
- This is subverted with the arrival of King Foltest, appearing the macho cavalier as he insists he'll survey his city no matter what a warzone it's turned into. An assassination attempt sends him into a huddle surrounded by his footmen. After being rescued by the leader of a knightly order, who plays this trope straight, Foltest retreats to his palace with all the dignity he can muster.
- The aforementioned leader of a knightly order who is also the Man Behind The Man and Big Bad counts. Justified in that he is the accomplished swordsman and the source who mastered his own power through the sheer force of will.
- Regal Bryant in Talesof Symphonia, a noble and president of an important and powerful company which almost controls a whole city. He fights with his feet while handcuffed and would be more powerful if he fought with his hands, but he made a promise not to kill anyone with his hands after he euthanized his lover with them.
- The faction leaders (one or two special NPCs per race) in World Of Warcraft are all boss-level creatures who will mop the floor with your face if you attempt to take them on without an army behind your back. (Well, except the king of Stormwind, but he just happens to be a 4-year-old kid.) Likewise, no instance endboss ever attained his lofty status by virtue of guile, cunning or charisma. It's always a case of having more power than all other pretenders...
- Odin Sphere has this trope all over the place. Pretty much everyone who kicks ass is, was, or is related to, royalty. The only real exceptions are the Three Wise Men, who are just normal (though powerful) mages, and only actually failed in their schemes because every PC (sans Gwendolyn) and even an NPC or two was gunning for them at them, all at the same time. They really should have tried to make fewer enemies...
- In Iji, this is justified by the Tasen Commanders and Elites having superior weapons and power armor. In the case of the Komato, it's more Asskicking Equals Authority, since the strongest and most skilled Komato get upgraded to the highest ranks... but they also get equipped on promotion with Berserker cybernetics, Annihilator exoskeletons, or even General Tor's Eidolon exoskeleton, which is the nastiest machine in existence. Subverted with Playful Hacker Yukebacera, bar none the most powerful Tasen, who's only a Soldier; this is explained by him having illegally hacked himself an arsenal that's fully a match for Annihilator Iosa's.
- Touhou use this trope straightforward time and time again, except in Subterranean Animism where the bosses of stage 5 and 6 are domestic pets of stage 4 boss (who is also the mistress of the dungeon your character is fighting through).
- Towards the end of Ninja Gaiden, Ryu faces the two monstrously huge forms of the Holy Vigoor Emperor, the head of state and absolute monarch of his country. While not the toughest bosses in the game, they put up a good show for themselves, and by dimensions, are the largest. The third form is revealed in the DS sequel to have been small, humanoid, and capable of running the day-to-day affairs of the small, militarized land locked Asian monarchy.
- In Ninja Blade, it is no big surprise that the Master of your Ninja Clan is an asskicker of unsurpassed magnitude. However, it IS somewhat surprising when your Unit Commander, generally a Voice With An Internet Connection (a gray-haired bureaucrat in a pin-striped suit) turns out to be a Jui-Jitsu master powerful enough to kick the Dragon's ass in unarmed combat.
- Colonel Radek of Killzone 2 shows you how he got that high a rank in his Boss Fight. Even after you take out his personal guard, he'll be blasting you in the face with a light machinegun, teleporting and going invisible to knife you from behind and being a fricking bullet sponge until you finally defeat him, at which point he commits suicide. Scolar Visari on the other hand isn't a combatant and dies after Rico shoots him in a cutscene.
- In Romance Of The Three Kingdoms VII, higher officer classes can command more powerful armies, and higher general ranks get more tactical points. And since officer classes are determined by "deeds," and the quickest way to up your deeds marker (barring exploits) is through kicking ass in battle, while the AI usually assigns general ranks by WAR skill, you can bet that a 1st Class Supreme General will be an absolutely fearsome opponent, whether man-to-man or commanding on the battlefield.
- Subverted with the ZOE squadron pilots in Ace Combat 2. The Captain gets a F-14, the Major gets a F/A-18E and the Colonel gets a F-22. Seems to be holding up so far, right? Well... the General gets a relatively dinky F-15S. Then the Commander, who would pretty low on the totem pole by Common Ranks, is the Final Boss with the ADF-01 superfighter that is as capable as one would expect a non-Anticlimax Final Boss to be.
- In Fallout 3, a side quest finds the player scavenging the ruins of a DC museum in search of Abraham Lincoln artifacts. One such antique the player can find is "Lincoln's Repeating Rifle", a gold-plated weapon that fires .44 Magnum bullets and easily outclasses most other weapons in the "Small Guns" category. Honest Abe was packin', folks.
- Also in Fallout 3 is Talon Company's leader, Commander Jabsco, who's armed with a rocket launcher and can survive more damage than a Deathclaw (the toughest "non-boss" mob in the game, not counting the expansion packs), and the truly insane General Jiang Wei, who carries a lightsaber and (depending on player level) can have more health than any other mob in the game, including the 15-foot tall Super Mutant Behemoth.
- Averted in the game's main plotline, though, as Big Bad President Eden is a supercomputer with no combat capabilities, and his The Dragon Colonel Autumn turns out to be only marginally tougher than a standard soldier.
- The original Fallout had Big Bad The Master, an evil mutant head attached to an armored throne armed with dual gatling lasers. His The Dragon, The Lieutenant, was also the toughest member of the Mutant Army.
- And in Fallout 2 you had Frank Horrigan, who was the toughest member of the Enclave. Although completely averted with the President.
- Sometimes averted, sometimes played straight in the Total War series. Depending on the traits that a leader possesses, he may be a god of war in human form that can charge into enemy ranks and massacre them easily, capable of striking fear into the hearts of enemies and raises his own army's morale through the roof. Or he can be a hypochondriac wimp that can be killed by being surrounded by peasants armed with pitchforks...
- Every character even loosely associated with the royal bloodline of the Kingdom of Obel in Suikoden games will be, at the very least, a competent fighter. This includes the player characters in the fourth and fifth games. At some point, it goes beyond being a Warrior Prince; Obel's royal family apparently passes knowledge of warfare through the genes.
- Subverted, then played straight in Bioshock: Andrew Ryan turns out to be an Anticlimax Boss who orders you to kill him with his own golf putter, but Frank Fontaine juices himself up with ADAM so that he can be the final boss.
- This trope is one side-effect of the way Soul Nomad And The World Eaters handles unit setup. All units in a "room" fight and move together on the battlefield, and one unit is designated as the Leader. The Leader tends to be more powerful than any other unit in the room, because all the other units contribute a percentage of their stats as a constant bonus to the leader as long as they're alive.
- Played fairly straight in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Although the Emperor himself is a One Hitpoint Wonder, Martin turns out to have extensive knowledge of forbidden magic, not to mention turning into a dragon in the final act. Not bad for an unknown priest in the middle of nowhere.
- Dremora may fit as well, as high-leveled character will encounter only Markynaz and Valkynaz-ranked ones (which are considered to be lords and princes of their realm).
- There is an organization of villains in the Kingdom Hearts franchise who use this trope in various ways. In Kingdom Hearts II the Final Boss is the organization's leader, playing this trope straight. In Chain Of Memories, this is inverted: the Final Boss is the member ranked eleventh out of thirteen, with his superiors being fought earlier in the game. And believe you me, he was no Anticlimax Boss. Maybe that's why he was The Starscream...
- And on the heroic side, there's Mickey, a keyblade master and the strongest Guest Star Party Member in the game... and, of course, he's also the revered king of the Magic Kingdom. Practically a meta example, as he's also the mascot and leading character of the Disney half of KH's Square-Enix/Disney team-up, and his power and role in the storyline reflects his real-life importance.
- Both used and averted in Prototype. Elizabeth Greene and the Supreme Hunter are both far more capable than standard Infected, and Leader Hunters are stronger than normal Hunters, but "mere" Captain Cross proves to be tougher than any of the random higher officers Alex consumes, and definitely more badass than the Blackwatch leader.
- Subverted in the Revenge of the Sith game, where the leaders of the Separatist army are easily the weakest enemies in the game. Incapable of attacking and trapped in a small conference room with Anakin, all they can do is attempt to run away as Anakin slaughters them all. Played straight later in the level, when the main one (the green grub guy from the first two movies) pilots a spaceship and becomes the level boss.
- The Metal Gear Solid series had both Big Boss and his predecessor, The Boss. Both initially handled by the storylines as villains, both incredibly powerful warriors, and both far more complex than any of the games' heroes could have guessed.
- I can sort of see why no one put King Bowser in, but come on!
- Averted in Fable 2, where the end boss after a cut scene is weaker then most random mooks you face and is taken out in one shot.
- Averted again in Wet were after taking out the dragon, there isn't even a gameplay fight against the main boss; it's just a cutscene of Rubi executing him.
- In Strong Hold, the Lord is the most powerful unit, being almost immune to arrows and able to outmatch up to three heavily armored swordfighters simultaneously. Unfortunately, the player cannot make much use of this advantage, since the lord's death equals a Game Over.
- In The Godfather game, higher-ranking enemy mobsters have more health, deal more damage and must be softened up before you can grab them. On your end, as you gain Respect levels and rise through the ranks of the Corleone family, you also gain health, damage and a variety of other perks.
- In The Godfather 2 The player starts out almost maxed out, as they advance through the story they are allowed to recruit up to 7 followers, even though they can only have 3 following at once, followers have 3 ranks, Soldiers are capable of a single specialization, eventually you can promote up to two of them to become Capos which have double the health of a Soldier and have two specializations and right before the reveal of the obvious villain and traitor Hyman Roth is revealed you gain the opportunity to promote a Capo to Underboss, these guys have 3 specializations and 3 times the health of a Soldier, the same as the protagonist.
- Hyman Roth also counts as during the story people imply that he's the greatest criminal mastermind ever, when Dominic and co have taken out every other Family then and only then do they get the opportunity to go to Florida and take out Roth, he has more bodyguards in the airport than the Almeida Family Compound in Cuba
- Ridley from the Metroid series is the leader of the Space Pirates and is a Space Dragon to boot. Being badass is inevitable, as proven by how incredibly powerful he is everytime he shows up.
- Averted and played straight by Mother Brain and played straight by the rest of the Pirates. Mother Brain can't even attack in the first game, but is protected by indestructible turrets and has immense durability and a Healing Factor. In Zero Mission, she lost the healing factor but gained an attack, and in Super Metroid she is attatched to a Humongous Mecha that can wipe the floor with Samus, requiring a Deus Ex Machina to defeat. For the rest of the Pirates, higher rank usually nets better equipment, like the Pirate Commander's indestructible armor and personal teleprter. Weavil, a Pirate General (the same rank as Ridley, actually), has armor on par with Samus' and wields a miniature nuclear reactor in his crotch.
- In the Quake games in which they show up, the Strogg have a supreme ruler, called the Makron. The first Makron was the final boss of Quake II (it's said he got the job by destoying any rivals), and his successor was the final boss of Quake IV (who was specifically built to counter the Human counterattack). Justified in that the Strogg are cyborgs, which means giving your leader more guns and armor on the assembly line is doable.
- In Armored Core: For Answer, the world is pretty much ruled by a group of arms-manufacturing megacorporations which resolve disputes using Humongous Mecha. Guess what two of the CEOs of these corporations do to earn pocket money... yep, that's right. Semi-justified as both of them exclusively use their own respective corporations' products in combat, thus serving as walking (or rolling) advertisements.
- The Nihilanth in Half-Life and the Combine Advisors in Half-Life 2, both leaders of vast armies and both possessing immense psychic powers. Breen could have been an aversion, though he was a figurehead at best.
- Naturally General Viggo in Fur Fighters is the final boss and one of the most powerful characters in the game.
- In Resonance Of Fate, the world of Basel is effectively a fundamentalist state, ruled by a group of Cardinals. You get to fight 4 of those Cardinals through the course of the game. (Well, technically only 3, since one of them left his position just before attacking you.) The first one inexplicably possesses Villain Teleportation, wields a grave-marker in one hand and a Sawed Off Shotgun in the other, preferring to teleport directly behind you and unload an undodgeable combo which can (and will) take you from full health to 0 in one go... but he can be somewhat forgiven for this since he LOOKS the part.
- The next one, however, is a Mad Artist with a french accent, who dual-wields a golden Luger and... a picture-frame. His bullets are powerful enough to make the roof collapse on your head, and he soaks up damage better than most of the giant mutants you've fought before. The next one is a bald, white-bearded old man who is mostly famous for his huge collection of rare books, and studious inquisitiveness. He wields a BFG and is even tougher. The final boss is Cardinal Rowen, the highest-ranking of the Cardinals, and de-facto leader of Basel. He goes Guns Akimbo with a Gold AND Silver Luger, and can absorb SICKENING ammounts of bullets.
- Just Cause 2 takes place on a small, east-indian island-state, run by the short, egomaniac tyrant, 'Baby' Panay. He's clearly patterned after real-world dictator, Kim Jong-Ill of North Korea, and seems to compensate for his diminutive size by errecting huge monuments in his own honor - and, of course, by executing anyone he doesn't like. However, after shooting your way through his entire army - tanks, gunships, torpedo-boats and all - he turns out to be virtually invincible on his own, starting out by shrugging off a hand-grenade to the face, and then wielding a supercharged rocket-launcher in one hand while ignoring the hail of bullets you throw his way. In the end, it takes a NUKE to kill him.
- A lesser case is the Colonels - high-ranking army-officers you are tasked with assassinating. They all wear nigh-impregnable body-armor, and can only be damaged with headshots - of which they can absorb several. Even if you bring in some heavy weaponry - a tank or a missile-armed gunship - you can expect him to take at least one direct hit without dying.
- In Destroy All Humans! this is done with varying degrees of justification. General Armquist and Silhouette only pose such a challenge to Crypto because they've kept the best Schizo Tech for themselves, and President Huffman is originally an aversion, getting killed as easily as any random civilian . . . until his brain's put inside a 50-foot tall robot, at which point he becomes the toughest enemy in the game.
- However there's no real explanation for why cops can take more volts of electricity than civilians, or why soldiers can take more than cops, or why Majestic agents can take more than anyone else.
- In the RTS game Seven Kingdoms 2: The Frythan Wars regular soldiers, once out of training, start at level 20. The King(Player) starts the game at level 100.
- Domin from Dubloon. Large, tough and has Reality Warper-like powers.
Web Comics
- Girl Genius is a rare example of this rule being used by mad scientists. Most of the Sparks that have appeared in the comic so far have proven to be quite competent fighters - part of this may be justified by them often having a Death Ray or two in their pockets, but even in unarmed close combat, several Sparks have demonstrated high levels of skill. Gilgamesh Wulfenbach (the heir to the empire) recently demonstrated an ability to smack a six-foot tall Jaegerkin soldier around, even while injured. Baron Wulfenbach has also demonstrated action hero-level fighting-skills, but that may be attributed to his past, adventuring with the Heterodyne Boys. The Heterodyne Boys themselves may also, technically, be said to use this, seeing as they were the hereditary rulers of Mechanicsburg. Oh, and while Agatha doesn't fence, she's been shown to be quite the slugger with a 3/17 Occipital Left-Leaning Heterodyne Wrench...
- There's also the strong implication that the Baron experimented on himself to keep going in his adventures (much like Othar), and there's the possibility that Gil inherited some of those... improvements.
- Don't forget the Jager generals on Baron Wulfenbach's airship. Not only can one take a crashing plane head-on, but when they fight, even the lesser Jagers don't want to be around. Presumably, you get to be a Jager general by being tougher than any other Jager around you.
- "For a spoiled...aristocrat...you're pretty good...". Opinion is divided as to whether Tarvek's spoiled aristocrat image was Obfuscating Stupidity.
- Schlock Mercenary has a few examples, especially with various forms of "Super Soldier boosts," but there are two clear examples:
- Captain Tagon is no slouch: a trained, experienced, and highly skilled soldier, he isn't someone you'd want to cross. Still, in a fair fight, he'd probably be creamed by any number of his enlisted beings. Good thing he cheats.
- Kevyn, the second in command, isn't all that tough physically; but between the antimatter-bomb epaulets and just being the Mad Scientist, everybody reacts like he could kick their asses.
- Plus, he has three violent brothers (who have yet to be seen on screen), so he and his sister are hardly slouches in unarmed combat.
- In Sluggy Freelance, becoming a Demon Lord automatically grants a normal demon a fiery Battle Aura, nigh invulnerability, and a much more muscular frame.
- Subverted in Order Of The Stick, where Roy mistakenly assumes that Lord Shojo is a high-level paladin when he is, in fact, a non-combatant aristocrat.
- Later played stright with his nephew, Hinjo, who is a very capable paladin and becomes the leader of the Sapphire Guard and exiled Azurites after Shojo's death.
- I believe it's demonstrated here in The Fancy Adventures of Jack Cannon. Who knew Principals had so much power?
- Played with in Errant Story. The most skilled members of the Ensigerum, a group of warrior/monk/time-mages, are generally the highest level initiates and newly raised monks as the older members lack recent combat experience and have grown too dependent on magic. The trope is played straight for their leader, Imperatrix Anita, who is without a doubt the deadliest member of the order.
- MSF High: Any teacher at MSF High has this. Any Legion Queen has this, with access to all ten Legion 'facets'. Principal Kasumi? Don't even ask. Keiri is not to be messed with as well.
Web Original
- Used in Survival Of The Fittest. The leaders of the terrorist organization are Danya, and a group of four terrorists directly under his command appropriately referred to as "The Big Four", two of whom are Danya's bodyguards when they're not doing other things. The Big Four play this straight in that they're all elite soldiers, one of them having been the WBA's World Heavyweight champion before retiring from boxing, and badass bookworm Jim Greynolds is the only one of them who isn't more or less a master of hand to hand combat. Also used with the group SADD, whose leader Neil Sinclair is probably the best fighter of the bunch (he certainly lived the longest)
- In the Kim Possible fanfic "Osama's Last Stand", Osama Bin Laden can stab Kim Possible in the stomach in the middle of her monologue.
- Open Blue's Back Story had the Kaisers and Kaiserins of the Jormungand Imperium, who had access to an elixer that boosted their lifespan, physical abilities, and Healing Factor, making them fearsome warriors in battle. Second to them was the High Executor, leader of the Praetorian Guard, who was armed with an ancestral sword that could double as a Wave Motion Gun.
- He's Barack Obama.
- Xandus, the most powerful villain in the Avatar Adventures universe, doubles as the Prime Minister of Canada.
- It is revealed in Kickassia that Kevin Baugh could teleport and use a sword.
- In the Armageddon web-novels, this is how both Hell and Heaven operate - rank and power are equal, with Satan and Yahweh being on the top of the heap. When Michael managed to kill Yahweh with the assistance of his conspiracy, he not only increased in power, he gained the ability to confer power on other angels.
Western Animation
Real Life
- Very commonly Truth In Television in organizations where the strongest fighters naturally rise to leadership roles. Strongmen, warlords, pirate captains, and criminal leaders often reach their position by Klingon Promotion or by simply being the toughest, scariest, and most vicious bastard in the bunch. Thus, asskicking leads to authority.
- For pirates there were a few notable exceptions in the golden age of piracy (early colonizing of Carribean) One was an old chinese woman who operated mostly around Singapore, she was followed mainly because as a teenager she had memorized the tidal flows and ocean floor of most of the area she worked in giving her an incredible ability to plot perfect courses.
- The most famous, and amazingly baddass, is Bartholomew 'Black Bart' Roberts, an extremely religous teetotaler (no alcohol) who was FORCED TO JOIN a pirate crew because he was a good navigator; i.e. he was smart, could read, do mathematics, etc in a world where that was very rare. He was voted captain of the ship after the previous one's death and proceded to conquer over 200 SHIPS IN 3 YEARS. Blackbeard managed 72 ships, at most, in 18 months.
- Bart ended his career as, essentially, an admiral (over a fleet of three ships, but still, admiral). His career ended in a pitched battle between his armada and a British armada. Off the coast off Africa. In a storm! And why did he become captain in the first place? To paraphrase, "... since [I have] dipped [my] hands in muddy water, and must be a pirate, it [is] better being a commander than a common man." And better still? He was elected captain after being with the crew just a few weeks. He was that awesome from day one.
- Generally speaking, this is the point of a feudal system of government; the entire reason a person in such a system owns significant amounts of land or has significant power is because they're trained to fight (and can murder anyone who tries to take their holdings, which happens rather often). While fat, slovenly aristocrats are a stock character of works about medieval times and other feudal system when written today, in practice such men were rare. If you couldn't fight properly in a medieval system, you were every likely to end up dead, either on the battlefield or by some opportunistic jerk (most often your son or your kid brother) offing you because you're too weak to resist.
- Career soldiers were rare for most of human history. In most cultures, the wealthiest members of society were only the ones who could afford military weapons, training, and proper nutrition. A notable example is the Spartans, who could afford to spend their whole lives training to be warriors because their vast slave population did all the actual work. Thus, authority leads to asskicking.
- In England, the Domesday book was commissioned because the king needed to know exactly how many people lived where and how much stuff they had. In the end, the rule was that four roods of land equaled one soldier. A large estate had to provide several, and several small estates were pooled to provide one. That is, those small estates had to get together to choose who would serve and then equip/train him. He often then became a de facto lord of those several estates, wielding authority because he was skilled in death, rather than being merely "farm tough" (farmers were fit, even if not huge).
- President/General Idi Amin. Oh my GOD. After seeing Last King Of Scotland, this troper was personally relieved to learn that he really was dead in real life.
- Then again, Amin got his ass kicked in a war with Tanzania, which eventually led to his overthrow. Maybe then-Tanzanian president Julius Nyrere is a better candidate?
- Vladimir Putin is a former KGB agent with a 6th Dan black belt in Judo. If an assassin ever tries to take him down, he'd best do it from far away. Oh, and he is a Colonel, too.
- And if the Kremlin is to be believed, he recently rescued a group of journalists from a tiger.
- Seems he's been taking more from the Land Of Dragons than anyone could have predicted.
- Many United States presidents have strong military credentials, which usually helps them get elected.
- George Washington was a courageous field commander and soldier, and his heroism on the battlefield was a major factor in getting him elected as the first American president. He was also a rather impressive physical specimen for his day.
- Andrew Jackson was probably the toughest president in American history, with both an accomplished military record as well as a long list of dueling victories to his name. In one duel, he purposefully allowed his opponent to get the first shot so that he could take his time to aim and ensure a kill. He's also the only president to beat up an attempted assassin.
- Ulysses S Grant won the Civil War and was later elected into office twice, despite being a pretty lousy president.
- Most of the presidents between Grant and Roosevelt were veterans of the American Civil War.
- Theodore Roosevelt was a noted Rough Rider, cowboy, hunter throughout the world including Africa, and pugilist. He once delivered a speech with an assassin's bullet buried three inches into his chest.
- George S. Patton was not only a fantastic general but also the youngest "master of the sword" in American military history.
- To be a General in the US military, it's usually a requirement to have led troops in battle. This means that most generals could probably kick your ass. The ones you really want to run away from? Full generals (four star), General of the Army (five star) and General of the Armies (six stars, theoretically). Don't worry about the 5 and 6 stars: there have only been 8 of the former (last conferred in 1950) and 2 of the latter, John Pershing in 1919 (he actually used four stars, but in gold) and George Washington (posthumously, in 1976). In Washington's case, an act of Congress has mandated that no one will ever be able to hold a higher rank than him.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger, anyone?
- The Romans tended to follow this to some extent. During the republic period the society's elites were generally expected to serve in the army for a term. For example, at the Battle of Cannae, the casualty reports list at least 30 active senators, as well as a consul, a former consul, and a large number of other high ranking Romans. So while the leaders didn't necessarily need to kick the most ass, they were certainly expected to be able to kick some.
- Most presidents of the French fifth republic were soldiers: Charles de Gaulle was a general during World War II, and also fought in World War I; Georges Pompidou fought in the battle of France; Valery Giscard d'Estaing also fought during WWII, earning a croix de guerre; Francois Mitterand fought in the French Army at the beginning of WWII, then worked for the Vichy regime before switching sides and joining the resistance, then fought once again for the French Army, making him either a man who made many mistakes in his youth but eventually came to his senses or a very skilled bastard, depending on who you talk to; and Jacques Chirac was a volunteer during the Algerian War. The current French president's only millitary experience was to guard the house of Ruhollah Khomeini, making him an inversion of this trope.
- Inspired by the examples of his mythical heroes, who often took the lead in fighting alongside their troops, Alexander the Great personally fought on the front lines in every campaign he led. He often suffered grievous injuries, but always survived and came back for more.
- At least one protester learned the hard way not to get in former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien's face when the "Little Guy from Shawinigan" strangled him for getting too close, which shows why many people prefer to call him "The Little Street Fighter from Shawinigan," or or the less complementary "Shawinigan Strangler".
- Fat, incompetent, non-media-savvy former Deputy Prime Minister John "Two Jags" Prescott delivered a stunning left jab to a man throwing eggs at him from close range. It really was a beautiful punch.
- Appropriately, the grand-daddy of them all is the succulently magnificent Sumerian king Shulgi, a real person from circa 2000 BC. At least if you believe the poems he wrote about how ridiculously awesome he was. Aside of bragging about his wonderful head for things like maths and writing, he goes to some detail over how very good he is at beating the crap out of lions and elephants. No, seriously! On top of everything, this guy comes across as being so full of shonen passion, it's almost impossible not to like him. This, of course, is what for millennia afterwards, Mesopotamian kings were meant to be like. Good times.
- Rameses II led his troops in his various campaigns and in the Battle of Kadesh he charged at the opposing army with his personal guard and 2000 chariots against 50 000 men and then drove them to flee. Did I mention he was riding his chariot at the head of the charge using one arm to hold the reins of his chariot and the other to fire his bow?
- Thutmose III claimed, in his inscriptions (see the Armant and Gebel Barkal stelae here), that not only could he kill seven lions with a single arrow or shoot an arrow three hand-lengths through a bronze target, and is alone the match of a million regular soldiers, he actually breathed fire. One has to wonder how many of his subjects believed all this...
- Considering that they were constantly told that he was a literal god on Earth, at probably at least a few peasants in some backwater village.
- Due to the intense military powderkeg that Israel finds itself, and the fact that the nation has compulsory military service, many Israeli leaders are particularly battle-hardened.
- Moshe Dayan was known for his impressive war record and eyepatch as well as his political service.
- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon founded and lead Unit 101, Israel's first special forces.
- Prime Minister Ehud Barak is a former elite commando and master of Krav Maga!
- Prime Minister Benjemin Netanyahu was a former commander of Sayeret Matkal (Israeli SAS Equivalent).
- Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was Former Army commander of the IDF Chief of Staff.
- Even Ehud Olmart, arguably the weakest Israeli Prime Minister In the past two decades, was former Golani Infantry.
- Although King Saul did not turn out to be a fantastic warrior king, he was annointed by the prophet Samuel in part because he was a head taller than all other Israelites. That's one big dude.
- King David's career began when he defeated Philistine's greatest warrior with a single stone, then chopped off his head. He performed a number of other bad ass feats. The "Star of David," which has become the nearly universal symbol for Judaism as well as the symbol for Israel, is widely thought to have originated from David's battle standard, although it probably wasn't.
- The Soviet revolutionary Leon Trotsky played a major role in the Russian Revolution. When the Bolsheviks seized power, they were immediately attacked by everyone from conservative monarchists to the Mensheviks to foreign nations, all of whom wanted to depose them. Despite being a bookish intellectual with no military experience to speak of, Trotsky proved to be an amazingly gifted military commander, turning the Red Guard militia that had brought the Bolsheviks to power into the Red Army, defeating every single enemy that tried to overthrow them and ensuring the survival of the Soviet state. The Authority part comes not only from the prominent place he had in Vladimir Lenin's government, but also the fact that he was Lenin's favored successor. Of course, Josef Stalin had something to say about that...
- Victor Yuschenko, President of the Ukraine, eats dioxin for breakfast.
- Michael Collins, former head of the IRA and consummate badass.
- Nelson Mandela. Serious.
- Franz Ferdinand. That guy was surprisingly hard to kill.
- It took exactly one pistol bullet to kill him.
- Kamehameha the Great, the ruler of Hawaii. So Bad Ass that they named a world destroying martial arts technique after him.
- Just about every other Tsar of Imperial Russia was an extremely badass dude; apparently the Romanov bloodline carried the gene for asskicking (the hemophilia was introduced by the last Czarina, who was not a Romanov by birth). This was helped along by the fact that Russian monarchs were waging almost constant war, as well as putting down constant rebellions. Notables include Alexander III, who was known for filling his scepter with vodka and surreptitiously getting extremely drunk, and then proving his strength by bending railroad spikes in half. He once lifted a whole car to evacuate the wounded when his train crashed. Of course, it exacerbated his alchohol-induced kidney problems, and he died soon afterwards at 49, but still.
- This could largely be blamed on Peter the Great, who both was a legendary badass himself (and a deserved Memetic Badass for the purposes of 19th and 20th century Russian literature) and introduced a professional military tradition where the Gosudar' Imperator had to be an exemplary officer and was trained accordingly.
- And the same goes for at least some of the female rulers as well; thus Empress Anne was a pretty good - and certainly very enthusiastic - markswoman, while Empress Elizabeth, "The Daughter of Peter", lived up to the name by leading a military coup d'etat in person, wearing a regimental uniform and wielding a goddamn grenade. It's important to remember that both lived in the first half of the 18th century - and that this was seen by the guards as more or less due.
- Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark has completed the education for the Danish Navy's elite forces, the Danish Frogman Corps.
- Charles Martel, King of the Franks, called himself the Hammer of God, for very good reason. His descendant Charlemagne inherited all of Martel's asskicking, and then some.
- Many South American political leaders were like this, the most famous being Simon Bolivar. His right-hand men Jose Antonio de Sucre and Jose de San Martin were no slouches either.
- Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden was a warrior-king who, from the age of 17, led his nation through twenty years of almost constant war and turned Sweden into one of the dominant powers of Europe. He is sometimes called the father of modern warfare. He has many Badass Nicknames, such as "The Golden King", "The Lion of the North", and "The Father of Modern Warfare". He died while charging into battle unarmored, shouting, "The Lord God is my armor!" Unfortunately, this was more brave than wise.
- This clearly runs in the family. Queen Christina of Sweden, his daughter, was a badass beyond her gender. A prodigious intellectual who spoke many languages fluently, she was likewise renowned for her skills as a sharpshooter, equestrian and tactician. Christina may well have been the inspiration for the faerie-tale king who asks a guilty party to define the punishment that should befall a person who has done a terrible thing... and who then inflicts that punishment upon the person who defined it. Christina did as much with Gian Renaldo Monaldeschi, Christina's Master of Horse; when Queen Christina discovered him plotting against her, she asked Monaldeschi what should be done with a treacherous adviser... and when he said that person should be executed, she revealed that such a fate would be his own.
- Vlad Tepes Dracula. Both a prince, and a warlord who slaughtered enormous numbers of Turkish soldiers.
- Caesare Borgia was a badass by anyone's definition. Smart, charismatic, strong-willed and physically powerful, he lived up to his imperial namesake through his flamboyant exploits. Eventually hunted down, he single-handedly fought a small army before dying of his wounds. Even now, he stands as the epitome of ruthlessness; his ally Machiavelli modeled The Prince after the example of Caesare.
- The Apache leader Goyahkla, aka Geronimo. Seriously. He got his familiar nickname from Mexican soldiers who cried out to Saint Jerome for help from this lunatic dude who battled riflemen while armed with only a knife. His mystical ass-kicking powers were considered so great that Apache warriors begged to have him personally paint their faces for war in hopes that his abilities would pass on them as well.
- Zulu monarch Shaka Zulu, who turned his tribe into the most powerful military force in 19th century Africa. One of Shaka's favored weapons, the Iklwa, was named for the sounds a man made when it was stabbed into and pulled out of his body! He trained his warriors mercilessly, and gave even the rifle-toting British Army a serious run its money.
- Martial arts masters who found their own style of martial arts are naturally the toughest guys in the school. See this video of Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido.
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