12th Feb: A new policy is being put in place for TRS threads: Make your case that the name/page is broken in the Opening Post, or the thread will be nuked immediately. See Everything You Wanted To Know About Changing Names for what "Make your case" means.
5th Feb: Echo Chamber Season 1 blooper reel on Youtube here
"If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it: I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."
The Spear Counterpart to Mama Bear.
He may be normally a Bumbling Dad and a Non-Action Guy, but threaten his kids, and you'll soon wish you'd never messed with him. A Papa Wolf is always portrayed heroically in contrast to many an Overprotective Dad. A Team Dad may display a streak of this, but the Papa is more likely to be related to his children by blood or through formal adoption, and the children tend to be younger, which may be part of why the Papa Wolf is more oriented toward protecting them rather than training them to defend themselves (though even completely grown children can summon this response in the face of crisis.) He, furthermore, tends to be less affectionate than Mama Bear under normal circumstances. Often, his fierce reaction to injury to his children is presaged by his normal manner, providing for and protecting his family under ordinary circumstances — however bumblingly.
Note that a Mama Bear tends to be the mother of The Hero (or another main character) while the Papa Wolf tends to be The Hero or a main character himself. Also, unlike Mama Bear incidents, Papa Wolf occasions serve as a way for a father to prove his worthiness. (See A Real Man Is A Killer). Expect his children to have a newfound respect for their father, and for their previously strained relationship to improve. After all, a father who beats the crap out of people is cool. Mothers who do that, on the other hand, are kind of scary (but also often cool).
Furthermore, for fathers there is more of an expectation that they will attempt to protect their children, it's just that nobody expects them to be any good at it. Half the time it's more the competence that is surprising, rather than the defensive act itself. Often Papa Wolf incidents serve as a way to reveal the father is really a Retired Badass. This is often a revelation to his children as they thought he was a Non-Action Guy.
When Mama Bear and Papa Wolf team up (surprisingly rare) you are screwed.
Not named "Papa Bear" (sorry, Stephen Colbert) because in Real Life, bears do not make very good fathers. Plus, it also happens to be the name of a certain Bumbling Dad in a children's book series. The male wolves, on the other hand, will react to their offspring or mate being threatened in very much the same way a female bear will. Plus, they are big and badass.
Subtrope of Beware the Nice Ones. See also A Father to His Men. Combining this with Disproportionate Retribution can lead to a Knight Templar Parent. If the guy is a teacher instead, he's a Badass Teacher. If the guy doing this is a sibling/cousin you get Big Brother Instinct. Inversely, see Parents In Distress for the kids rescuing the dad. Evil characters can use this too; after all, Even Evil Has Loved Ones. A subtrope of the Papa Wolf is the Badass and Child Duo, where an adult male badass takes it upon himself to protect an orphaned, unrelated young child who is usually a girl.
Remember when adding examples that this is a male only trope. The female equivalent is "Mama Bear" so all female examples should be placed there.
Kenzo Kabuto from Mazinger Z and Great Mazinger. It is arguable if he wasor was nota good father. It is not arguable when his older biological son was about of being killed he sent a Humongous Mecha after the people was attacking him, and when his adoptive son was about of being killed, he blew his assailant and himself up. Therefore, althought his parental skills left much to be desired, you DON´T try to hurt his sons.
Henry Maaka from Karin is usually a weak-willed wuss, but when his daughter Karin is in trouble, he will literally let himself burn to rescue her from the hospital people who think she's an Ill Girl, but could potentially discover that she's a vampire.
Most people try to kill vampires with stakes. Henry uses uprooted trees.
Takahata is this way as well, but to Asuna in particular he's an adoptive father. Although only because his self esteem is too low to be her boyfriend.
Oga from Beelzebub seems to not care for Beel, but, if you put a finger on the baby...
In chapter 107 he openly declares himself to be Beel's parent, emphasizing this trope even more.
Isshin Kurosaki of Bleach is this in spades when it comes to his daughters. They... don't appreciate it. Slapstick ensues.
And in the latest chapters, to Ichigo, while the latter faces Aizen alone.
Kenpachi Zaraki subverts this during the Arrancar arc, when Nnoitra was menacing Yachiru. Granted, Kenpachi is already a Blood Knight and Ax Crazy, but threaten Yachiru, and you might as well have signed your own death warrant. Of course, Ken-chan denies that it was Yachiru being in danger that spurred him on, but we all know the truth.
In the second sequel series Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds, Crow goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge when he returns after the appearance of the Dark Signers' evil fog to find out the kids he's taken in have all vanished.
Also Jeager (to an extent). You may not be able to tell when you meet him, but he'll do anything for his son.
For that matter, in the present timeline, Sanzo's furious response and following Heroic BSOD when Goku was shot and almost died fits this trope to a T.
Goku himself to Sanzo. Particularly since hurting Sanzo is a sure way to press his Berserk Button and his Unstoppable Rage.
Also, Hakkai. Don't threaten or hurt his comrades. JustDON'T!
Whenever he learns that his daughter Ran Mouri and/or his charge Conan Edogawa are or have been in danger, Detective Conan's KogoroMouri is definitely not pleased. And you do NOT want to provoke a man who looks and acts like a slob, yet is a National-level judoka and acts at his most competent when It's Personal. More than one suspect has been at the receiving end of a powerful judo throw for this.
He also acts a lot more professional when he knows a child's life is at stake; this is seen in the kidnapping episode.
Inspector Juzo Megure is also very protective of the kids who hang out with Mouri and of his own subordinates. Better shown when he goes It's Personal mode in a case involving young women being attacked: he refuses to let Action Girl Satou act as a decoy once his Berserk Button was pressed, and later took a metal pipe to his head while protecting Sonoko from the culprit. It's explained that this comes from one of his first cases, where he failed to protect a schoolgirl posing as a decoy and she almost died. Fortunately, the girl got better... and then they gotHappily Married.
While there are many Papa Wolves and Mama Bears among the Sympathetic Murderers, there was a specially dark take on this trope during a two-part anime only episode. A businessman had contacted Kogoro to locate an assassin whom he had hired to kill him, having backed off the deal but not being able to find him and tell him so. It turned out that he was using Kogoro and others in a Batman Gambit destined to find and kill said hitman with his own hands, since one of his assassinations jobs led to the accidental death of the tycoon's beloved daughter. Conan had to beg the grieving and very pissed off father to not exact said revenge, but he also made sure that the hitman's threat was neutralised and he was taken into custody.
Dragon Ball and its sequels have a lot of dads, but the grand master of this trope is Piccolo, to the point where his constant and epically badass rescues of his pupil and adoptive son Gohan become something of a Running Gag.
Vegeta too. Despite wanting to do nothing with Future Trunks (usually ignoring him or just pushing him aside whenever Trunks tried to reach out to him), he went crazy after Cell killed Trunks.
"How could I let this happen to my son? He has sacrificed everything for me and I have done nothing but ignore him. I won’t give up on him! There is still time to change things. Cell has crossed me for the last time! He has tricked me in battle, mocked my Saiyan ancestry, but this! This time he has gone too far! He will pay the ultimate price for what he has done to my son!"
One Piece has Captain Whitebeard, one of the four most powerful pirates in the world. An attack on one of the Whitebeard Pirates is never forgiven and his reactions are legendary-when the World Government sentenced his adoptive son and lieutenant Ace to death, everyone involved knew immediately that it was effectively an outright declaration of war.
After Ace's death, instead of going insane with rage like most had expected, Whitebeard in a frightful and calm way defeated his very powerful murderer Akainu in two blows and, in the same blow, split the entire Marine island in half... despite being stabbed, blown up, gutted and with half his face burnt off. All to avenge poor Ace's death. And you thought Whitebeard on a rampage was bad?
There's also Chef Zeff, who was like this towards the young Sanji. When they didn't chew each other up, of course. This *is* the ex pirate who either ate his own leg so child!Sanji would have enough food to survive in the manga or had the same leg cut off to rescue the kid from drowning when the shp he worked in was sunk in the anime, after all.
Shanks, when Luffy is threatened. There is a reason why he lost that arm of his...
Zoro too. He's normally not the type to take revenge. But Ohm made him reconsider that when he set traps that brutally injured Chopper.
In fact, Zoro will beat up anyone who hurts his True Companions, as proven when the Franky Family beat Usopp and he, along with the others, returned the favour and destroyed their house in retaliation. Also when Robin was almost killed by Enel, he caught her before she fell (despite his earlier distrust against her) and furiously attacked Enel as a result.
Luffy himself is a fledgling version of this trope, as any attack on the physical or emotional well-being of his crewmembers is taken personally and likely to result in an angry and violent beatdown, like he did when Nami had a hertbreaking Heroic BSOD once her efforts to save her village were thwarted by her Bad Boss and he epically beat up and defeated said boss. The fledgling aspect comes from the fact that he isn't quite strong enough to back up this fierce protective instinct yet. He found that out the hard way in Shabaody, where the entire crew was more or less beaten half to death and scattered to the four corners of the Earth by Bartholomew Kuma and he was helpless to stop it.
Garp is a Grandpa Wolf who would have killed Akainu for killing Ace if Sengoku, the Fleet Admiral, hadn't stopped him. He even tells Sengoku to keep him down or he would have tore Akainu to pieces.
Also, Luffy's actual father Dragon the Revolutionary has appeared only once or twice, but one of these apparitions puts him squarely here. When Luffy was about to be executed by Smoker... a lighting fell from the sky and Dragon showed up. He went to Smoker and spoke to him... and Smoker nearly pissed in his pants due to that, and let Luffy go.
Fullmetal Alchemist: "Don't EVER mock my son." Seriously. Screw with Hohenheim's kids (especially in the manga and the Brotherhood TV series), and you're in trouble.
Confirmed even more when he immediately offers to sacrifice himself so Al can come back to the world after the Grand Finale. When Ed asks him why would do that, he calmly replies, "Because I am your father."
On a similar note, old man Fu would like a word with the leader of Amestris with regards to his granddaughter Lan Fan's number of original limbs. (Turns out that confrontation doesn't work out so well. But at least we get to see the inverse with said granddaughter.)
Maes Hughes also counts, telling several party-going toddlers not to "try anything" with his daughter. Complete with Scary Shiny Glasses and Dramatic Gun Cock. It's Played for Laughs, but you know that if anything ever really did threaten his beloved Elicia, there'd be hell to pay.
Kenshiro in Fist of the North Star. Anyone threatening, never mind hitting, Bat or Lin is to endure a rather slow and painful and explosive death.
There's an interesting straight use and subversion of this trope, pulled off by the same character (a villain). He's the leader of a wolf-themed gang, and one of their raiding parties gets their asses handed to them by Kenshiro. When he finds the bodies, he howls for vengeance, taking the rest of the pack with him to hunt for Kenshiro. The subversion comes from the fact that when they are utterly defeated by Kenshiro and Rei, one of the midgets in his gang comes up to him and asks for help. He tells him to get lost, that he can start a new pack anytime he wants. Then they all die.
In the second OAV based on the video game Fatal Fury, titled FATAL FURY 2: THE NEW BATTLE, lead hero/fighter Terry "The Wolf" Bogard has lost his will to fight and live after being beaten by Wolfgang Krauser, only to have a street kid named Tony tag along with him. Tony, who lost his father in a street fight and works as a shoe shine-boy to support his Hot Mom Elsa, worships Terry's reputation as a fighter and wants to be his disciple. After the defeat, Terry spends half the special getting drunk and not caring about anything... It is only after Axel Hawk, the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, orders his sparring partner to beat Tony within an inch of his life in a bar (after Terry drunkenly refused to fight Hawk when challenged), does Terry rise out of his funk...and drops Hawk with ONE PUNCH. Even Hawk can't believe it (as his inner narration mentions).
In The Movie, Kim Kaphwan gets to show off his Papa Wolf credentials as well. When a Brainwashed and Crazy Cheng Sinzan steps into a party he's attending with the main cast and his family, Kim offers to fight him so his two kids can see him kick ass. His rival, however, soon starts wiping the floor with him, so much that Joe has to be stopped by Andy from breaking in... but the very moment one of the Kim boys begs his daddy to not lose, Kim brings himself back and completely curb stomps his enemy.
Tendo Soun of Ranma ½ isn't as Bad Ass as most of the cast, but disrespect any of his three little girls and you'll realize that he hasn't forgotten much of Happosai's Training from Hell. Saotome Genma, on the other hand, is cursed to transform into a literal "Papa (panda) bear". See the opening statement on why this trope is named "Papa Wolf" and not "Papa Bear" and you'll understand the Fanon that Jusenkyo curses are Personality Powers.
Kurogane is like this. Though he has an initially calm attitude when Seishiro "kills" Syaoran in Oto, you can just tell there's the hint of death in his dialogue and in his face. Though it's hard to tell if he's more mad about Syaoran's "death" or Fai's. Either way, don't mess with anybody in his party.
Sesshoumaru from InuYasha usually doesn't get too excited about much. Threaten Rin, though, and a beatdown like none other will commence. The best example comes from the manga... when Rin is taken to the underworld by a hellhound, Sesshoumaru follows and kills it. When she is already dead, whoops the King of Hell's ass to get her back. When this doesn't work, he actually shows the closest thing to human emotion he's ever done in the series, purifies the souls of the dead as an afterthought, then rips a hole back into normal reality. After all of this, his youkai queen mother acknowledges this and uses her powers to resurrect Rin since Sesshoumaru, of all people, is clearly unhappy about her death. He goes from Aloof Big Brother to a combination of John Creasy, Jesus, and Spawn in a Crowning Moment of Awesome and Crowning Moment of Heartwarming unparalleled in the other 500+ chapters of the manga.
Despite being the hero of Lone Wolf and Cub, Ogami Itto averts this trope - if anything he's an Underprotective Dad. Mainly because his toddler son Daigoro is a samurai too, and though he he does love his kid... if he should be killed, that's a risk that comes with the job.
However, Ogami has pulled more than one You Shall Not Pass for his clients either in the process of getting the job done or to repay a debt of honor: once, he stopped by a village whose men had all been drafted for war and helped them till a field, even to the point of cutting down anyone who tried to pull him away, because he'd been asked to do so by his last assassination target.
Despite being the youngest (male) of the group, Gundam 00's Setsuna F. Seiei is quite the Papa Wolf for his teammates in season two. This is so pronounced that sensing his comrades all on the brink of death pissed him off to the point that he unknowingly initiates the "Trans-AM burst mode", completely turning the tide of the battle.
An ironic example is Sergei Smirnov, who has been called ''Papa Bear'' (because in-universe he's nicknamed "the Wild Bear of Russia") by fans with the description of Papa Wolf in mind. He did fit the Papa Bear description given above regarding his treatment of his son Andrei, but with Soma Peries he was Papa Bear all the way.
In one of the Gundam Wing mangas, King Peacecraft performs a badass You Shall Not Passin the middle of a burning palace◊, so his butler and a nobleman working for him can take his child Relena to safety. He doesn't make it alive, but the others manage to reach safety with the little kid, who later becomes a key player in the story.
Black Lagoon's Ginji Matsuzaki. Do not even look at his protégé Yukio wrong, or this Bad Ass swordsman will cut you down. Ask about what he did to Chaka, to start...
Rokuro Okajima aka Rock. As seen with Gretel, Garcia, and later, Yukio, he'll go to great lengths to shelter children and teenagers from harm. Kidnapping and then molesting and abusing Yukio is a good way to make this usually mild-mannered, diplomatic and well-spoken former Salaryman angry enough to actually cuss you out and physically assault you.
You can do anything to him, even completely destroy his guild and Makarov will only get irritated, but if you hurt any of his guild members, there's a very good chance he will make you stop breathing.
No. He willcrush you if you so much as think about hurting any member of Fairy Tail. So much, that he will flat out start a war with another guild if they hurt a guild member. Also, pretty much everyone in the guild will turn into a Papa Wolf or Mama Bear if you hurt another member of the guild, particularly Levi...
Don't so much as think of threatening Pinoko or Black Jack will cut you to ribbons. Then sew you back up. Then charge you everything you're worth for the trouble... Yeah, it's just that kind of story.
While not a biological father, Sousou/Cao Cao from Ikki Tousen is this towards his friends. So much, that his Superpowered Evil Side took full control of him whenever he saw them in danger. It first happened with his Unlucky Childhood Friend Chuukou (he thought the bullies at their judo club were attempting to rape her), and later with his Bash Brother Kakouton (who lost his eye while shielding him)). And in the anime series, he also recruited Myousai by protecting her of a rapist and offering her a chance to be his subordinate and fighter instead of a Child Soldier.
They may have marital problems in Macross 7, but don't ever think of threatening any of their children or their city or their ship; coz when Mama Bear Milia and Papa Wolf Max Jenius team up, you are definitely screwed. Especially emphasized on their killer combo attack in Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 as seen here.
Minato Namikaze aka the Fourth Hokage from Naruto. In fact, the whole deal with the Kyuubi has just recently been revealed as the struggle between him and Madara Uchiha, with Complete Monster Madara using Minato's love for his wife/partner Kushina (then-host of the Nine-tailed fox) and their newborn son Naruto (future host of the same Fox) for his advantage. And we already knowhow THAT ended...
Hizashi Hyuga deserves a mention here, as the mere realization that his son Neji is a member of the Branch Family sends him into a murderous rage (which is stopped before it can begin courtesy of Hiashi activating his curse seal - and doing so is the first step in causing Neji to spend at least nine years of his life afterward as the inversion of this trope!)
Also Hiashi for killing that Cloud ninja for attempting to kidnap Hinata.
In Pluto, love for his child broke through a robot's aversion to killing, and was then used against him to kill him.
Gesicht: Even if the world ends, I won't let you go.
One of the weirdest (andthat'ssayingitNICELY) examples ever is Dr. Shingen Kishitani from Durarara!!. In the novels, we learn that Shingen was the one who cut Celty's head off and sold Saika's sword off to the Sonoharas... but he did it in order to protect his young son Shinra from Namie Yagiri's grandfather, who threatened to kill Shinra if he didn't.
Black Cat. Have some nefarious scheme for Eve? Want to study the nanomachines that she uses? Feeling compelled to dissect her just because you can? Pray to the god of every religion you've ever known that Train and Sven don't find out about it. Especially the former of the two.
In Fruits Basket, we have Kazuma Sohma, foster father to Kyo Sohma. In one chapter of the manga, Kazuma proclaims his intent to protect Kyo single-handedly from the entire Sohma family if he must.
There's also a sketch in one of the later volumes, where Kazuma meets with Kyo's Jerkass of a father, cheerfully telling him that now that the Zodiac curse has been broken and Kyo is free, it's time they had a little talk about Kyo's future. Kyo's father looks like he's pissing himself in fear. It's Played for Laughs, but given the psychological abuse the father heaped on Kyo (at one point he accuses Kyo of trying to kill him for standing too close to him), it's very much a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
In How I Became a Pokémon Card, a Dragonite goes on a wild rampage when he thought his son was kidnapped by humans.
Not even a freaking typhoon could stop Kenzan Takakura from getting medical attention for his ill daughter Himari. And he still had enough pluck to shield one of his sons, Kanba, from a falling lamp. And had his other son Shouma been there, he would've protect the kid too.
In Happy Yarou Wedding, Yuuhi is very much one. Because his own childhood was so lonely he wants to give Shouta the best childhood he can and is fiercely protective over him.
Kotetsu T. Kaburagi of Tiger & Bunny may have a stained relationship with his daughter, Kaede, due to his job as a superhero (which she isn't aware of) meaning that he has to spend a lot of time away from home, but he's not about to let anything harm his little girl. This is showcased when he lifts a collapsed tree to save Kaede from a collapsing shrine even when his powers run out, and later, when Maverick has a gun to Kaede's head, Kotetsu reveals himself to be Not Quite Dead and punches Maverick in the face.
The titular Onizuka from Great Teacher Onizuka who goes through great lengths to protect his students. In fact, you don't even have to be his student. He will rescue you anyways. This includes getting shot multiple times in an attempt to rescue a school girl (who happened to be trying to discredit him as a teacher) he saw being kidnapped while on his way to take an exam.
Sai Nanohara from Jubei Chan is almost always a Bumbling Dad, but once he learns that his daughter Jiyu is the reincarnation and Soul Jar of Yagyu Jubei, he decides not to stay aside and does what he can to help her. In fact, his first Papa Wolf act was calling out Yagyu Jubei himself upon his treatment of Jiyu. To Jubei's very face. And in the Grand Finale of the first season, Sai also manages to give Jiyu/Jubei a Cooldown Hug to dispossess her.
Comic Books
Of course, being the nice guy and great hero he is, Superman obviously falls under this trope. Especially mess with Conner, Kara or his adopted son Chris and you'll be under a worse ass-beating than usual from Supes.
Also, when Atlas looks over an unconscious Supergirl, who had just been shot by a Kill Sat, he makes a comment that implies that he's going to rape her. Superman's all "HELL NO!" and knocks him into the sky. Sure, Supes would save anyone from that, but Kara is practically his daughter.
Gary Hampton in The Astounding Wolf Man which is fitting because he's in a fact a werewolf. I pity anyone who attempts to harm his daughter.
In at least two alternate universes, Batman has broken or has been really close to breaking his Thou Shalt Not Kill vow when either his adoptive son/sidekick Robin or his protégé/also sidekick Batgirl are in trouble. There is one named The Nail where Superman had not joined the Justice League since he was raised by Amish and not by the Kents, so superheroes were pretty much outcasts of society; in that particular world, The Joker kills both Robin and Batgirl in public and very cruelly - this sends the already distraught Batman into such an Unstoppable Rage that he kills the Joker right on the spot and then crosses the Despair Event Horizon. It takes Catwoman and Alfred more than a while to get him at least partially out of his funk.. Another was created when Jason Todd was killed; in this Alternate Universe, Batman kills the Joker, and figures, why stop there? He then proceeds to kill every supervillain in the DC Universe, because he's the Goddamn Batman. The irony? This world, without super-crime and with superheroes able to help with other things now, is a near utopia. And then Superboy-Prime blew it up.
It's not just the Alternate Universe Batmen that fall into this trope. In the regular universe, the only times Batman has come REALLY close to killing occur when any Robin/Batgirl/sidekick was threatened or killed. When Jason Todd was murdered, Batman struggled with the urge to kill the Joker (to the point where Superman showed up to help Batman stop himself from doing anything he might regret later), and the same occurred when Barbara was crippled by the same villain. Then when Black Mask tortured and killed Stephanie Brown a.k.a. Spoiler (who got better), Batman really tried to beat him to death, and was only stopped by Babs endangering herself on purpose. Finally, when Nightwing was almost killed by Alexander Luthor Jr. in Infinite Crisis, Batman grabbed a gun and was about to blow Luthor's brains out at point blank range.
It's kind of a known fact that if you want to grab Batman's attention the best thing to do is threaten the people he works with - especiallyNightwing or Robin. It's the kind of thing the more deranged villains frequently do, e.g. Joker and Two-Face. Papa Bat knows the kids can take care of themselves, but that's not going to stop him from showing up and 'dealing' with whoever dares to harm his children.
There was also a story where Batman has to do a night of crimefighting while toting a baby around...
Batman: You all know who I am. You know what I can do. But I'm holding a small child here. And if you make me do anything that could possibly endanger this baby... you will be very, very sorry. Forever.
That story ends with the revelation that he was willing to risk revealing his identity in order to give the baby a chance at a normal life with his parents.
It goes back to his father, Dr. Thomas Wayne. The good Doctor was a classic example of The Stoic: in control of himself, logical and not given bouts of emotion. But one night at a Halloween party the Waynes attended (with Dr. Wayne dressed as Zorro and Little Bruce dressed as a skeleton), Lew Moxon needed Wayne's help with an injured man. Dr. Wayne agreed, sewed the man up and calmly informed Moxon that he was going to report the incident to the police the next day. And then, Moxon made an offhand threat against Martha and Bruce. Poor Moxon had no idea he'd just flipped Dr. Wayne's Berserk Button until Wayne decked him so hard his grandkids felt it while shouting, "YOU TOUCH MY FAMILY AND I'LL SEE YOU IN HELL!" It's an awesome case of In the Blood.
Batman's fellow crime fighter and Mama BearBlack Canary's boyfriend Oliver Queen/Green Arrow isn't any different. When his son Connor was shot in the head, Ollie forced an arrow between Onomatopoeia's (the shooter) teeth, angrily asking why he tried to kill his kid and just a hair away from making shish-kebab out of his brain. He then decides he doesn't care why Onomatopoeia tried to kill Connor, and tells him that he will die if his son doesn't pull through, holding his bow in that position while the surgeons work. For 30 minutes. With a 200 lb. pull longbow. After giving blood. More recently, poor Connor was shot again (guy has no luck), fell into a coma, and was kidnapped from his hospital bed. Lord only knows what Ollie will do NOW to the ones responsible...
Recently, in the Justice League: Cry for Justice mini-series, the villain Prometheus's plans managed to result in the maiming of Roy Harper and the death of Roy's daughter, Lian Green Arrow's grand-daughter. This results, at the end of the book, in Green Arrow putting an arrow through Prometheus's brain via his forehead, after Blackest Night.
Even one of the villainous rogues in Batman, Dr. Jonathan Crane aka Scarecrow, is implied to have tendencies of this. When an Alpha Bitch outright bullies a distraught girl who was one of his patients, he was apparently angered enough to exact revenge on the same Alpha Bitch and her friends by gassing them with the Fear Toxin.
Bigby in Fables. Notably, he's an actual Papa Wolf, being theBig, Bad one.
His father the North Wind as well. After spending most of the series acting like a Jerkass God who never seemed to care much for Bigby he sacrifices himself destroying Mister Dark to save his son and his grandchildren.
Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead will do almost anything to protect his son Carl.
When a couple of bandits attack them on the highway, one of them attempts to rape Carl while another restrains Rick. Rick RIPS THE BANDIT'S THROAT OUT WITH HIS TEETH and proceeds to mercilessly stab the other to death.
In The Punisher MAX series, during the arc "The Long, Cold Dark," Castle's vengeful nemesis Barracuda targets the Punisher by kidnapping the daughter he unknowingly had with Kathryn O'Brien. When Castle finds out, he is pissed, to say the least, and at one point he spends an hour running electricity from a car battery through Barracuda's genitals just because.
Let's not forget the beginning of the comic, when Barracuda actually gets the drop on Castle and handcuffs him to a chair, then reveals his daughter and holds a knife to her (and trust us on this, Barracuda was going to torture her to death for the sake of revenge). Frank goes into Unstoppable Rage and has to piece together the following events by examining his injuries in a hospital bed. (He snaps his wrist in a heartbeat to get out of the chair, lunges across the room and tears a chunk out of Barracuda's cheek with his teeth. If 'Cuda hadn't thrown him out the window, he would have torn him limb from limb.)
Another Punisher MAX moment. In the story arc "Mother Russia", Castle is charged to rescue a little girl from Russian bad guys (to put it brief: There's a big plot about germ warfare). Upon entering the complex where she is held and meeting her, he says "My name is Frank. If anyone else tries to be mean to you, I will be much, much meaner to them. I promise." Soon after, a skinny, half naked Asian super agent comes and kicks the crap out of Castle with the butt of an AK-47. In a daze, he sees the agent slap the girl. He gets up. The agent throws a kick. Castle grabs his ankle, twists and slams him against the floor, walls, and ceiling until the agent is a pulpy mess and twists his leg off "like a drumstick." Do not fuck with kids around Frank Castle.
Even then, the only reason he stops is because he's scaring the kid.
And yet another MAX moment. Castle is conversing with one of his hooker informants. He's glaring at a pimp, who's guarding over a young girl. He asks the hooker how old the girl is. She says she's about 13 and mentions drugs. Castle walks to the pimp, pulls him into an alley, and emerges from the alley alone.
Punisher: Tell the new guy to behave himself. [walks off] Old hooker: ...that was not my fuckin' fault.
"Kitchen Irish" features a Grandpapa Wolf in Napper French, a retired mob cleaner and the best of his kind. French was legendary for his ability to pull a "Houdini" on a body, to make it disappear completely off the face of the Earth. Irish gangster Maginty kidnaps Napper's grandson to force him to pull one last Houdini...on a live man. He has no choice but to comply, but near the end of the job, Maginty, for his own amusement, shows Napper's grandson what his grandfather had been doing, traumatizing the young child. So Napper decides to give Maginty a firsthand demonstration of how one pulls a Houdini....
And let's not forget, the whole reason the Punisher has embarked on his waragainstcrime is one bad day in the park with his wife and kids...
The MAX arc "The Slavers" is another Papa Wolf moment for Frank. Encountering some human traffickers, Castle is so enraged with what these scum do to their victims, that by the end of the arc, he's shocked at what he has done. Including carving up one of the ringleaders, wrapping his intestines around a tree, and then waking the man up.
James Howlett akaWolverine is very protective of Kitty Pryde and Jubilee. Too bad his relationship with his biological son Daken isn't nearly as good... since said son is a supervillain.
It's pretty much tradition for Wolverine to have a female Kid SidekickMorality Pet whom he will fiercely protect. Deadpool actually exploits this at one time to pick a fight with him.
Even villains can fall under this trope. When Marvin and Wendy suffer their utterly ridiculous, cruel, and pointless death and maiming respectively at the jaws of a demonic Wonder Dog while working with the Teen Titans, their father The Calculator is somewhat understandably pissed. Being a villain, he acts as a very dark Papa Wolf. His vengeful scheming has already claimed the life of Eddie Bloomberg aka Kid Devil. He's even gone so far as to search for the Anti-Life Equation in the hopes that it could restore Wendy's ability to walk. It didn't work out.
Nathaniel Christopher Summers aka Cable (pictured above, with Hope in his arms) is this nowadays and a rather good one too. Hard to believe he used to be an amoral Liefeld character.
Marv from Sin City is like this to the girls at Kadie's Bar, especially Nancy. Granted, it's due to his enormous chivalry, but given his age and the ages of most of the dancers, I say it counts. He mentions one moment when a frat boy roughed up Nancy, which hit his Berserk Button about hitting women in general, and he "straightened him out but good," mentioning that he maybe went a little too far (implying that the other guy didn't survive). There's also the short yarn "Silent Night," where Marv hears about a mother asking after her missing daughter, then hunts down and kills her abductors (who had been planning to sell the poor girl for sex) and cradles the terrified child in his arms in a rare tender moment before taking her home.
The corrupt police commissioner Liebowitz turns against the Wallenquist crime organization in "Hell and Back" after his Dragon The Colonel orders the assassin Mariah to break Liebowitz's son's arm to remind Liebowitz of the organization's power over him. Liebowitz responds by organizing a police raid on the organization's human trafficking operations. Then he personally blows The Colonel's brains out and orders his officers to "make a missing person out of the fucker."
Luke Cage: Hero for Hire: Norman Osborn learned the hard way to not endanger Luke Cage's girlfriend (now wife) Jessica and their (then unborn) daughter - Luke beat the tar out of him in public, not caring if his already revealed identity took a nosedive in regards to reputation.
Kaine also shows this trait from time to time when his "niece" is in danger. Must be genetic.
Pretty much every incarnation of Peter Parker has this to some extent.... Granted, most versions don't have children, but they all have a big blinking button somewhere in their psyche labeled 'someone hurt my loved ones', and the majority of the New York underworld can tell when some idiot has pressed it.
Hint: the reason the motor-mouthed superhero hasn't talked in the last sixty seconds is because he's using all his superior intellect and enhanced nerve conduction velocity (IE: ability to think faster normal) to consider the merits of the 6,000 different ways he intends to hurt you.
There's also ASM #645. He's led to believe an infant he was trying to protect is killed. He then proceeds to go on a rampage. It's so bad, that some of his rogues gallery don't believe it...until he comes for them.
Scandal Savage and Bane of Secret Six have something of a father-daughter relationship, with Scandal's biological father being... well, VandalSavage and Bane being a Genius Bruiser when not on his venom, and it seems the one surefire way to get Bane to use said venom again is to put Scandal in danger, at which point anyone who happens to be in the way gets to experience what the Batman went through in Knightfall — that is, a broken back.
The Marvel Universe Ares could, would, and has gone to war with The Heavens Themselves to protect his son, tearing his way through both Olympus and the Japanese heavens to save Alexander.
Thabian Polotsk from Gold Digger IS this trope: a super-strong werewolf gentle giant with two young children he would (and almost did) die for.
Adversely, Brendan, another werewolf, disdains his children to the point of homicidal hatred.
In a short Ultimate story arc focused on Remy Lebeau, aka Gambit, the mutant finds a recently orphaned girl who immediately clings to him. Resigning himself to looking after her until he can find somewhere permanent for her to stay, Remy quickly grows fond of her. Then Hammerhead, the one responsible for making the girl an orphan, kidnaps her to remove the witness to his crime. Cue completely awesomeRoaring Rampage of Revenge to save her.
In The Mighty Thor, Volstagg is a big, cheerful, friendly fellow, always ready for a fight or a frolic. Harm, or even threaten, any of his children, biological or adopted, and he will come down on you like the wrath of the angry god he is.
Odin was willing to burn the entire world to ash if it meant he could avert the battle between the Serpent and Thor that was fated to end with Thor's death.
A rather twisted example would be Sinestro. Harm his daughter,Soranik Natu, and you will have the wrath of the entire Sinestro Corps bearing down on you and your entire planet, as the Weaponer of Qward learned. Of course, being Sinestro, this happens after he lets his daughter's boyfriend, Kyle Rayner, fail in a rescue attempt first just to show her how unworthy he is.
Reed Richards, along with his Mama Bear wife Sue Storm, of the Fantastic Four, especially given that both their children (Reality Warper Franklin and Child Prodigy Valerie) do have vast powers that make them desirable targets for just about every supervillain out there.
Ultimate Howard Stark. Who, for the occasion, had come prepared with a 26-man SWAT team and a team of paramedics, all of which he had (presumably illegally) bribed to do his personal work. "Exactly where is my boy, and how many people do we have to kill to get to him?"
Fan Fic
Skinner, Nemo, and Jekyll all have a tendency in this direction in The Private Diary Of Elizabeth Quatermain. Jekyll has (eventually) his adopted son, Nemo has his foster daughter, and Skinner has both his niece and his love interest.
There was no way for the overwhelming wrath of God to be made evident through mere behavior. The archangel was no longer responding to the demon's mocking himself for the light that surrounded his already blinding form had no place on the conceptualized wavelength of mortal comprehension; it was the response of an incensed Father to the torture and ridicule of one of his sons, it was the vengeful mark of the Lord Himself.
From Batman fic Antidote for the Poison, Jason Todd in a rare moment of brotherly concern is furious when he finds out that some drug dealer had injected Tim Drake with a dangerous amount of heroin as an attack against Batman.
"You took my little brother, tied him up, pumped him full of heroin, and left him to die in this shit hole. Now I ask you: do you think I have the slightest bit of remorse about cutting you open and letting your guts decorate the floor?"
In the Lord of the Rings fanfic Ancient Prophecy fullfilled, one of the Valar (the gods without Capital G) slew the children of their Guardians. Understandably the Guardians in question weren't so thrilled. They battled the Fourteen Valar, destroyed the city they dwelled in and still inspire such fear that the Valar have to call upon the in that fanfic formerBig Bad to aid them!
AUDevil May Cry fic "Like Father, Like Son" has Dante exhibiting his demonically-protective side when he finds his son Nero injured courtesy of a police officer with temper problems, and when Nero is later threatened by members of the mafia. The second time Nero gets threatened by the son of a mafia head, a partial Devil Trigger sends the man leaving with tail between legs. And when Dante finds the demon Baul, who had all but put Nero near Death's door... Cue Unstoppable Rage and Roaring Rampage of Revenge with a dash of There Is No Kill Like Overkill.
In Harry's New Home, Snape will go to any lengths to protect his ward Harry, even if it included breaking rules or facing the Dark Lord and Dumbledore (if necessary) to do it. For that matter, Dumbledore does not like seeing any of his students harmed in any way, especially if it's Harry. His Berserk Button was pressed when he found out Umbridge used a Blood Quill on Harry and in the prequel, he gave a casual warning to Snape who earlier in a fit of rage slapped Harry. All in a cheerful tone and a benign smile.
"You do understand that if you ever, ever again strike a student in so brutal a fashion, you will not survive the night, correct?"
One Piece's Muzzled shows a moment where Zoro literally resorts to biting Marines (after having his swords taken away and his hands tied) who tried to separate him and the kidnapped Usopp and Nami to trap Luffy.
Film - Animated
In 101 Dalmatians, Pongo teams up with Perdy to lay the hurting on the two thugs about kill not only their puppies but all 99 puppies. Their treatment of the bad guys is SCARY. You do not mess with puppies and let their parents find out.
Gru from Despicable Me after his three adopted daughters are kidnapped. Among other things, he hopscotches over a group of heat-seeking missiles fired towards him and one-punches a shark!
In a minor case, when the carnival barker denies Agnes the unicorn she wanted, even when she hit the nearly impossible target. He almost made her cry and Gru shows him why he should never mess with the adopted children of a supervillian.
Whether it's Disney's The Jungle Book or Tale Spin, messing with Mowgli/Kit will get you trouble from Baloo. In the former, he tells Big Bad Shere Khan outright, "Keep your flea-bitten paws offa my cub!" In the latter, discovering that someone has conned Kit leads to a different threat, "Wait until I get through with that guy he'll be able to count his teeth on one finger!" Both Mowgli and Kit even affectionately call him "Papa Bear".
Hiccup is lucky enough to have two of these...one is his biological father, a Bad Ass Viking who's willing to punch dragons in the face and dent metal with his hammer to protect his boy, and the other is a freaking dragon. A dragon who attacks and drives off another dragon a little over three times his own size when the other threatened Hiccup.
The Lion King: Mufasa is the best father ever (no matter his species), as he is wise, just, and royal. But don't you dare cause any harm to his kid, or he will END you.
Marlin in Finding Nemo, because how many fish do you know would risk life and death across an entire ocean that is infamous for some of the most POISONOUS and DANGEROUSLY VICIOUS creatures of the sea, to find his son? He's not even a shark, he's a Goddamn clownfish who's scared of everything.
His Spiritual Successor, Sonny Koufax in Big Daddy, is no slouch himself. He at first takes a boy as his own son to raise out of undisguised selfishness, but thanks to Becoming the Mask, ends up declaring: "I would die for this kid, just so he wouldn't have to feel a moment of sadness."
The Blind Side: Coach Cotton has a Papa Wolf moment after the Opposing Sports Team deliberately kicks Michael when he's down and after the play has already ended, and the referee not only ignores the kick, but penalizes the Wingate Crusaders.
Do recall that the battle there ended with Megatron impaling Prime. Megatron never planned to use Sam's brain in the first place: It was a ploy to draw out Optimus. However, Optimus made up for it with what he did to Megatron after coming Back from the Dead, and what he did to The Fallen for trying to drain Earth's sun.
To be fair, Megatron only impaled Optimus because the latter was distracted to find Sam. That and Optimus didn't bring both swords out from the start.
It should also be noted that in the first live-action movie, Prime comes to the rescue when Sector Seven kidnaps Sam and Mikaela, lifting their car thirty feet in the air and tearing the top off while intoning, "Taking the children was a bad move," in pure bad-ass fashion.
And in Dark of the Moon, after Sentinel Prime, Optimus's father figure and teacher, led an invasion that enslaved and murdered MILLIONS of innocent civilians in Chicago, Optimus would shoot said person execution style. The line he uttered as he saw the destruction of Chicago was chilling.
Optimus: "We will kill them all."
Homer Hickham Sr. in the film version of October Sky is something of a subversion: he's actually protecting somebody else's son from his stepfather, the resident abusive alcoholic. Does the whole grab-you-by-the-collar thing without the punch-you-in-the-face part, all the while plagued by soot-filled lungs. His personal Crowning Moment of Awesome. The exchange is reproduced here:
Homer Hickam, Sr: Now you listen to me you drunken son of a bitch. If that boy's father were still alive, he'd kick your ass. So I'm gonna have to do it for him. If I see him with a bruise... you get a scar. If I see him with a limp... you get crutches! Do you hear me? Do you hear me? Vernon: I'm reportin' you to the union! Homer Hickam, Sr: Screw you and your damn union!
Colonel Badass Ahnuld from Commando acts pretty unassumingly in civil life, but when the villains kidnap his pre-teen daughter...
Whenever Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a father in any of his action flicks, expect some seriousPapa Wolf action to go down if the bad guys mess with his kids. Case in point: True Lies — when the Big Bad kidnaps Harry Tasker's daughter, Harry goes after him with a fucking Harrier jet fighter. And sends the Big Bad on a missile ride.
Arnie plays a mild-mannered ex-military helicopter pilot (who takes skiers up mountains) in The Sixth Day. He fails to die on schedule, and the company responsible kidnaps his wife and daughter to try to force his compliance. Then he and his clone (yes, it's that kind of movie, and why he was supposed to be dead) destroy the company with a tin of aluminum oxideand one pistol between them. If you can't say Made Of Awesome, I'll do it for you.
The Governator doesn't even need to play a father, just having a character who's got to take care of children or teens is enough. Kindergarten Cop has a particularly emotional scene where his character, a police detective posing as a a school teacher, dishes out a brutal beating to an abusive father of an emotionally damaged student. "You hit the kid, I hit you," indeed.
And let's not forget that the climax of the movie was him having a showdown with the Big Bad, who happened to also be the father of the little boy whom he's been keeping an eye on under his cover. The moment the villain kidnaps the poor kid with the intention of running away with him is the moment Arnold TRULY goes for blood.
Parodied in Last Action Hero, where the movie from which Arnold's cop character is lifted includes a face-off with the Big Bad who abducted his kid.
Liam Neeson's Ex-Special-Forces commander Bryan of the film Taken (see page quote) shows the organization that kidnapped his daughter the exact reason why you don't screw around with an ex-CIA operative's kids. In a particularly brutal example of this trope, he is willing to go as far as threaten to kill a villain's innocent wife (and wing her with a bullet) to save his daughter from being sold into prostitution. The entire movie is effectively a paean to the Papa Wolf trope.
Liam Neeson, when he's not being a mentor or Historical Domain Character, plays these a lot. A milder example is his character in Nell, who winds up very protective of the borderline Wild Child (wild adult, by then) he and another doctor have been observing since her mother's death. A reporter who sneaks up trying to get a picture of the rumored "wild woman" gets thrown down the front steps of Nell's cabin and his camera broken for his troubles. Neeson's character does admit he overreacted, only to chase the reporter away when the idiot keeps asking questions.
OTOH, he also plays more than one real Papa Wolf out there.
Woe betide anyone stupid enough to try and harm Godzilla's son. Not even a Giant Spider can get away with it. There's a reason that one film is called Godzilla's Revenge.
This is especially evident in the film Godzilla VS Destoroyah in which the death of his son, killed by Destoroyah himself, caused Godzilla to go into a emotional ragefest and attack Destoroyah out of pure unrestrained fury.
Destroyah is also the single most powerful enemy in the entire series bar none, battling the King of Monsters to a standstill even when his power was at 150% overload. Killing Jr. pissed Godzilla off so hard that he actually forced the Ax-Crazy Destroyah, who till this point had done nothing but viciously attack almost single-mindedly, into a retreat!
Likewise, there's the American Godzilla who is both a Papa Wolf AND Mama Bear (don't ask).
Another example: King Kong in the 2005 remake behaves like this whenever he's protecting Anne Darrow, who's tiny and vulnerable enough to bring out the big fellow's Papa Silverback side.
John Wayne spends the majority of Big Jake tracking down and in the end blasting seven hells out of a bunch of bandits who kidnapped his grandson. Grandpa Wolf, indeed.
Tommy Lee Jones also played a Grandpa Wolf in The Missing. He was a Disappeared Dad and Grandpa hoping to try getting his family's forgiveness... and arrived back home just in time to learn that his eldest granddaughter has been kidnapped and was about to be sold as a child bride. So when his daughter (played by Cate Blanchett) went Mama Bear to get her girl back, he decided he wouldn't be less and joined her cause. So much that he defeated the Big Bad via Taking You with Me, killing himselfin the process.
The role that followed that one was Man in the House, where he's a sheriff who has to protect a bunch of cheerleader girls after they witness a murder. Hilarity Ensues until not only one of the girls is almost killed by a car bomb, but the man's daughter is kidnapped...
Benjamin Martin in The Patriot is firmly against a war for independence and submissive towards the over-the-top villain...until his farm is burned down, one of his sons is killed, and another is arrested and taken away to be hanged. Then he goes after the Redcoats with muskets and hatchets...
Temple of Doom begs to differ. Why was he captured by the villains? Because he wanted to protect a helpless child from being whipped to death, not to mention proceeding to fight the entire villain's army to free the hundreds of slave children, and giving up the mystical stones that would have made him a millionaire so the village they return to would be one filled with life and hope. Easily the single most heroic Papa Wolf performance for Harrison Ford.
"They're innocent children... Mola Ram, prepare to meet Kali, IN HELL!!"
Spoofed in Family Guy with the movie "Harrison Ford Telling Random People He Wants His Family Back."
Don't forget what pushed him into agreeing to help look for the Grail (though, given what happens with the man who gives him the news, he might not necessarily have had a choice) - finding his dad. He was willing to put a guy through a ship's propeller, and if the man wasn't a soft-core Knight Templar...
Does this make the actual Knight Templar at the end of the movie a metaphor?
The movie Orca has a Papa Wolf of a titular killer whale, seeking bloody vengeance against the man who killed his mate and calf.
What's now known of orca social behavior makes this unlikely to be a literal example of this trope. A son retaliating for the death of its mother, now...
The premise of The Last House on the Left is about a group of people who get trapped inside a house with a Papa Wolf and a Mama Bear after they brutalize and rape the couple's daughter. Three guesses as to what happens next.
While not actually the child's father, John "Creasy Bear" Creasy (Denzel Washington) in the movie Man on Fire is a spectacular example of a Papa Wolf. As a bodyguard for Lupita (a rich businessman's precocious daughter) in Mexico City, John doesn't let multiple gunshot wounds stop him from tearing through a powerful kidnapping cartel's chain of command until finally he catches the mastermind's brother and estranged wife. When the "Voice" starts trying to bargain his way out of John's vengeance, John interrupts him to say, "Your brother wants to speak to you," and then blows off the man's hand with a shotgun. It's implied that he would move on from there to the rest of the Voice's family, including his pregnant wife, and worse: "I will take your family apart, piece by piece. Do you hear me? PIECE BY PIECE!"
In the novel, it's worse: Since the girl who is under his custody is dead (detailsaside) he ended up OFFING THE WHOLE MAFIOSO ORGANIZATION. And he comes off as much more dangerous than his already incredibly dangerous performance in the movie.
Another Papa Wolf score for Denzel Washington is John Q, where to make sure that his Ill Boy son Michael will get a heart transplant which is being denied to him because insurance doesn't cover it, John Quincy Archibald actually takes a full hospital hostage and claims he won't back off until Michael is given priority. John goes as far as improvising a Thanatos Gambit so his heart will be harvested and given to his child, but it fails. In the Bittersweet Ending, however, John is still trialed and incarcerated, but Michael is saved.
The daddy T-rex in The Lost World. Teamed up with his Mama Bear to shove two connected RV's off a cliff after their hatchling was taken. Of course, being a T-rex, he was already a badass.
Later went on a rampage across San Diego just to find his baby. It doesn't help that he was high on amphetamines.
John McClane in Die Hard 4 - After he gets involved in the terrorists' Scheme, the Big Bad decides to kidnap his daughter Lucy to try to control John. Big mistake.
Ironically, Superman never really gets to play the part of Papa Wolf in the movie, even though Jason is his son and Lois is his Love Interest.
Though it's too little and too late to do any good, Will's father Bootstrap Bill Turner in Pirates of the Caribbean snaps out of his brainwashing, and attacks Davy Jones in a moment of Papa Wolf fury.
Captain Teague shoots the solider who was going to shoot Jack in the 4th film.
Major Henry West from 28 Days Later utterly snaps after his men are killed by Jim.
Lone Wolf McQuade: You can beat him, shoot him, bury him alive, and even shoot his dog and maybe survive, but if you hurt his daughter, you will open the whole can of Chuck Norris whoopass.
Note that the badguy who gets his ass kicked is played by David Carradine. If he couldn't stop Chuck, what chance would anyone else have? Likely something involving a 13 digit negative number.
Chingachgook, from Last of the Mohicans. The final few minutes proving forever that the worst thing you could do is dare to harm his son.
As well as James Potter. He decided to take on Voldemort on this own, knowing it almost certainly meant death (he even said to Lily "I'll hold him off", indicating he knew he stood no chance) because it gave his wife and son a chance of escaping.(He wouldn't have had a chance against the Dark Lord anyway, but on top of that, he wasn't holding a wand. It makes this into a heroic sacrifice.)
Death Sentence is a very cynical take on Papa Wolf-hood, and on revenge in general. When Nick Hume's older son gets killed by a gang member and he learns that the gang member will only receive a few years in jail, he forces the case to be dropped so that he can kill the bad guy himself. In doing so, he is forced to kill another member of that gang. However, the gang's head doesn't take kindly to this and swears vengeance on Nick's family. Nick being an Action Survivor rather than a hardened Badass, he fails to stop the gang. Though his younger son survives and he gets back at the gang successfully, it's quite clearly shown that Nick ends up far from the man he used to be. Not all positively.
Tony Fait: Wrong! Kid! And definitely the wrong father.
Dr. Tenma in the 2009 Astro Boy film. After he accepts Astro for who he is, it's made clear that he's willing to face the military, its angry Commander in Chief, and its scary indestructible robot to protect his boy. Makes you wonder what would happen if you threatened Astro while there was a chance Dad might get his hands on you.
In Tank, you can cross CSM Zack Carey all you like, and he will calmly accept it. However, if you harm a kid, he will come down on you like a ton of bricks.
Pops from Speed Racer puts his Greco-Roman wrestling skills to work while protecting his family from ninjas, er, non-jas.
Coming to America provides a nonviolent example in Cleo McDowell, an amiable and slightly Bumbling Dad who's eager to marry his daughter Lisa off to a rich boy. He's therefore over the moon when he discovers her suitor Akeem is actually a prince. But when Akeem's father King Jaffe upsets Lisa, McDowell drops the bumbling act and angrily threatens to "break a foot off in your royal ass."
Universal's 1934 movie The Black Cat gives us Dr. Vitus Werdegast (as played by Bela Lugosi), who takes revenge on Poelzig for killing his daughter (among other things, but that was what sent him over the edge). by skinning the man alive on his own embalming rack. And what's worse is that only a few moments earlier, he had been given hope that his daughter was actually alive after thinking that she had been dead since he's been sent to the prison camp.
A strange case in The Wolf Man (2010). When Anthony Hopkins shoots on those who want to catch his son, he is a Papa Wolf. But later he tries to kill Lawrence. And he already killed his brother. And he is a werewolf.
Brutally averted by Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects. In a tale told in universe, the Turkish mafia decides to take on a small-time, young Soze. They break into his place, rape his wife, and threaten his children, killing one right off the bat to show they mean business. Soze then kills his family and all but one of the Turks, saying he'd rather see his family dead than live another day after that.
In Back to the Future II, Marty gets chased out of the "dark 1985" version of his house by a baseball bat-wielding Papa Wolf, who is enraged to find Marty in what, in the altered timeline, is the bedroom of the Papa Wolf's young daughters.
Bonus points because from what said Papa Wolf screams as Marty runs away, the family is being targeted by some company who wants to drive them out of the neighborhood. Presumably this was not the first time people had broken into that home.
An unusual although understandable example would be Walt from Gran Torino, who is Papa Wolf toward his neighbors once he gets over some racial tension, but not toward his "own spoiled-rotten family" who treat him more like an invalid than a worthwhile individual. When he comes to Sue's rescue:
Walt Kowalski: Ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while you shouldn't have fucked with? (spits on the ground) That's me.
The Professional: Léon to Mathilda. He literally throws away his life for her.
He didn't really throw his life away. He had a plan and when the plan failed, he didn't have many options left. There's not much you can do while lying on the ground with a few bullets in your chest and the bad guy standing over you — except taking the bastard with you.
Coach Jones of Radio becomes this on several occasions for Radio. In one instance, he slammed the Jerk Jock that tricked Radio to enter the girls' locker room into the trophy case display, after the eye-opening words of, "Son, it's times like these I wish I wasn't a teacher so I could do what I really want to do to you."
In Terminator 2, the T-800 is reprogrammed by John Connor to be this to his past self. John's mother even remarks on it in her narration.
Sarah Connor:Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear. The Terminator would never stop. It would never leave him. And it would never hurt him, never shout at him or get drunk and hit him, or say it was too busy to spend time with him. It would always be there, and it would die to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers that came and went over the years, this thing, this machine, was the only one that measured up. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice.
Charlie Anderson in Shenandoah insists that the Civil War doesn't concern his family, even saying that his sons don't owe their state anything because the state "never came around here with a spare tit." But when some Union soldiers mistake his youngest for a rebel and take him prisoner, he starts taking the war personally.
There's an excellent case for Mr White fulfilling this trope in Reservoir Dogs, assuming you don't prefer the Ho Yay interpretation, in his protectiveness over young protégé Mr Orange, to the point where he takes a bullet for him. He really, really doesn't like it when you accuse Orange of being a rat. When Orange indeed turns out to be the rat, Mr. White has to put the bullet to him in probably the most emotional moment of the entire movie.
Crazy Stupid Love: Cal's reaction upon finding out about Jacob and Hannah, and Jessica's father's reaction when he thinks Cal is involved with his daughter.
Sam Childers (Gerard Butler) in Machine Gun Preacher. If you threaten or harm the children of Sudan or Uganda, he will make sure that you pay. The best part: this film is based on a true story.
In the classic film Ma and Pa Kettle,Ma,Pa, and their large family move into an ultra-modern house Pa had won in a sweepstakes. Eventually Pa gets fed up with all the newfangled gadgets in the house, and moves back into the family's old home: a decrepit shack in the middle of a swampy junkyard. Meanwhile, Ma holds the police at a standoff with a shotgun after she learns the contest was a cruel publicity hoax. It takes the intervention of the Kettles' adult eldest son to bring her out of her rampage. Just as the woman who orchestrated the hoax decides not to press charges and offers Ma her most sincere apology, here comes Pa Kettle with the family wagon and a dozen or so of his Injun friends.
Pa: THERE THEY ARE! SIC 'EM, BOYS!!
Literature
This is the entire premise behind John Grisham'sA Time To Kill. After a brutal first chapter detailing the rape of his 10-year-old daughter by a couple of rednecks, Carl Lee Hailey (played by none other than Samuel L. Jackson in The Movieof The Book) goes berserk on the two and opens fire on them with an assault rifle (even though they were already on trial), catching a court deputy in the process. The deputy forgives him, as does the jury when they acquit him of murder charges by reason of "temporary insanity."
Woe betide whoever dares to abduct Popsy's grandson.
Conan the Barbarian: Although being mostly an Anti-Hero he won't hesitate to shed blood to save his family from any danger.
Akela, who acts as a father for Mowgli despite not necessarily his adoptive father. And is a literal wolf.
Baloo and Bagheera, too (despite being a bear and a black panther, respectively). Akela stood up for him when he was brought to the pack as an infant (after Raksha saved him from Shere Khan), Bagheera bought his life and protected him ever since, and Baloo taught him the ways of the Jungle - and when he's kidnapped by the monkeys, they join with Kaa to make it a day and a night the poo-flinging rabble will not live to regret...
Sergeant Jackrum from the earlier book Monstrous Regiment is an example, being A Father to His Men who regularly kills, injures, or otherwise incapacitates anyone stupid enough to threaten one of his Little Lads. Until we find out that "he" is actually a she who's been masquerading as a male soldier for longer than she can remember, technically making Jackrum a Mama Bear.
Subverted in Wyrd Sisters, in which the late King Verence tries to charge ferociously to the rescue of his son, but is balked because he's now a ghost and can't leave the castle.
An Older Than Radio example comes from Hector Malot's Sans Famille. The travelling musician Vitalis practically purchased lead character Remi Barberin as his apprentice, but he genuinely cared for the boy and became his mentor and example. His "Papa Wolf" side shows more strongly when he discovers that the old man whom he was going to ask to look out for Remi in the winter actually abuses his protegees and forces them to steal for him, and later when he protects Remi from dying in a snowstorm... in a Heroic Sacrifice. And he was also hinted to be one in his first apparition, when he "buys" Remi... after witnessing how horribly his abusive stepfather Jerome treats him, therefore choosing to "purchase" Remi half to have an apprentice and half to protect him.
Individual names are not given but in Harry Turtledove's Worldwar Tetralogy, the Alien Fleetlord is amazed at reports of suicidal Tosevite (read: Human) attacks by both genders on his forces. Its stated that the few humans that actually survive indicate their actions are because of harm done to a Mate or Hatchling by his forces
Amelia Peabody: Dr. Radcliffe Emerson, Egyptologist-detective husband of Amelia Peabody, who is always short-tempered and becomes absolutely volcanic at any threat to his family. Since he is regularly described by his narrator-wife as "Herculean" in build, the results are impressive. For that matter, his son Ramses inherits this trait. Guess what? Their wives are definite Mama Bears; it's a close-knit family.
Honor Harrington: Anton. Zilwicki. Messing with his kids is the last mistake entire secret societies ever make. The entire planet Mesa and its Ancient Conspiracy may yet fall through the chain of events set off the first time they tangled with him.
Not to mention that we have yet to see his reaction to the latest atempt by Mesa to kill one of his daughters. The foreshadowing in At All Cost might give some clues.
And don't forget Anton's best buddy Victor Cachat and Victor's mentor Kevin Usher, who got off their asses and did something about the corrupt Havenite ambassador, because of Zilwicki's daughter kidnapping. Honor herself has her moments -- the surest way to get her to kill you, is to mess with somebody in her care. In fact the whole series is full of Papa Wolf and Mama Bear moments, from the lowly Aubrey Wanderman to the Queen herself, to the whole nation of Grayson which are all, 2 billion of them, a bunch of Papa Wolves.
Also don't forget Nimitz. He may be a Ridiculously Cute Critter most of the time, charming people's socks off to glom some more celery, but if anyone harboring murderous intent gets within spitting distance of Honor, he'll instantly transform into a six-legged, self-propelled chainsaw with absolutely no mercy. (He's also probably older than Honor's father, so he qualifies under the "Papa" portion of the trope as well.)
In Perry Moore's Hero, Hal Creed, a 100% normal (granted of the badass variety) Human, beats the shit out of a Superman expy for threatening his son.
Burrich in both the Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies. Just how awesome can a grumpy old man be? Trek across a glacier and kill a deranged stone dragon for the adopted son who let you think he was dead for 15 years, that's how awesome.
Raptor Red's consort pulls a Papa Wolf to save one of Raptor Red's nieces from an acrocanthosaur. He has mixed feelings about doing so: he gets several cracked ribs, the chick isn't related to him, and Raptor Red didn't even see his heroic actions. It does, at least, mend his relations with Raptor Red's sister for a time.
Most David Eddings characters fall into this at some point: if you go after their wives, kids, fiancees, or friends, they begin throwing around phrases like "boiling oil," "wring him out until his hair bleeds," and "kill him just a little bit." Then they catch you. Then you discover this was them being nice.
This trope applies especially to Belgarath. He not only has a few Wolf-themed nicknames, but also likes to turn into a wolf whenever he has the chance, and is even married to one. It works especially well because most of the time he prefers to give off the impression of a lazy drunken hobo. Barak on the other hand is scary enough in his normal form, but whenever Garion's life is threatened, he goes into a berserker rage and turns into a bear.
Belgarath certainly qualifies, particularly given the following exchange after Chamdar/Asharak the Murgo has killed - by burning them alive inside a stone house - Geran and Ildera, the parents of Garion and both of whom were much loved by both Belgarath and his daughter Polgara. Who are also two, it must be said, of the most powerful beings currently walking the earth:
Khonar (about Asharak): Our agent reported that he seemed a little nervous about something.
Belgarath:I can imagine. He's done something that offended me. I want to talk with him about it, and he'd rather avoid that conversation — since it's very likely to involve my hanging his entrails on a fence someplace.
When his turncoat brother kills Durnik, the 'son in law' figure, Belgarath Takes A Level In Badass and commits Zedar to the earth; literally. When he returns from the surface to the point that the book describes him as NOT what he was throughout the entire Belgariad, but "Belgarath the Sorcerer in all his fury."
Polgara says herself that Asharak likely crawled under a rock someplace deep and dark and very well-hidden to hide, solely to escape from the wrath of her vengeful father. A man who, it must be said, is considered by Asharak and his people to be the equivalent of the Devil. Skilled Angarak sorcerers are terrified of being within fifty miles of facing him, and she has also admitted that his power is one of the only things in the world that has held the Angaraks back from just overrunning the west with sheer numbers. Not the sort of Papa Wolf you want chasing after you with a single-minded purpose so strong that he can literally ignore rest, food, and the other necessities of "mere mortals" for weeks or even months at a time.
As Polgara once put it: He has his faults, but once he gets down to business, he's as inexorable as the tides.
This applies to Garionas well, but only in the sequel to The Belgariad, The Mallorean, in which the entire plot revolves around Garion turning the world over to get his son back from an evil sorceress, leading to a very satisfactory pay off when he finally catches up with her
Eddings seems quite fond of these graphic descriptions. As pointed out by Xanetia in the Tamuli, after Zalasta, former advisor and supposed ally, reveals that he has been working for the Big Bad Cyrgon since before the start of the series itself. And he has been deceiving and betraying Sephrenia, Team Mom and beloved by all the characters, for that same length of time, all in the hopes of killing the goddess she worships — also Sephrenia's younger sister via reincarnation - and possessing her out of lust. Boiling oil, hooks (nice long ones with sharp barbs on them) and their like are mentioned by several of the main characters. The quite civilised and cultured Sarabian is somewhat unnerved, asking them all if they have to be so graphic. He is told in no uncertain terms:
Kalten: Zalasta hurt Sephrenia, your Majesty. There are twenty-five thousand Pandion Knights — and quite a few knights from the other orders as well — who are going to take that very personally. Zalasta can pull mountain ranges over his head to try to hide, but we'll still find him. The Church Knights aren't really very civilised, and when somebody hurts those we love, it brings out the worst in us. Sparhawk: Well said.
In Dresden Files, although Harry is grown, and was his apprentice for only two years, Ebenezar McCoy is capable of this on occasion. In Summer Knight, he is so indignant that Harry is to carry out Mab's request without even knowing it that it takes Harry two tries to get through that, yes, he does know it. And he dropped a Russian satellite on the headquarters of a vampire who had threatened and fought with Harry.
Eb's reaction is explained in the novel Changes: Ebenezar is Harry's maternal grandfather.
What about Michael? He's a sword-wielding knight of God. He has a daughter who is about to be executed by the White Council Elders, who are powerful enough that even if you manage to kill just one of them, it would release a death curse which would be the magical equivalent of head butting the trigger of a 10-mega-ton nuclear warhead. He is exhausted and heavily wounded from battle. Yet, without the slightest hesitation, he immediately prepares to take them all on at once. Even knowing that afterward, should he somehow miraculously survive, he would forever more be on the run from every single white court wizard in the entire world.
Harry also manifests this attitude toward Ivy.
In Changes, the Red Court of vampires takes his daughter with the intent of sacrificing her to fuel a massive curse that will kill her entire bloodline. He responds by Joining forces with Mab and becoming her Knight, sacrificing two people on altars, and genociding the entire freaking Red Court.Don't fuck with Harry Dresden's family.
He actually stated that if the world came between him and his daughter, it could burn to death and they would sit roasting marshmallows upon its roaring flames.
Harry also serves as a surrogate Papa Wolf to the Carpenter family when Michael is otherwise occupied, as seen in the short story "The Warrior."
Not to mention in Proven Gulty, when he teamed up with Mama Bear Charity to storm the freaking Winter Court in order to save Molly.
Hell, he spends most of that book playing Papa Wolf to Molly, as her boyfriend would attest.
An odd example from the series is "Gentleman" Johnny Marcone, the local Mafia boss who is essentially a Papa Wolf to every child in Chicago. If Marcone catches you doing anything to hurt children in his city, he will personally execute you. Youdon'twant that.
In Danny, The Champion of the World, it's revealed that Danny's father's main reason for disliking Hazell is because he threatened Danny. Later on, when Danny gets caned by his teacher, his father threatens to go down to the school and beat the teacher.
Adrian Mole, upon finding that his little sister has been knocked up by her boyfriend.
Becomes a major turning point in The Outsiders. Johnny stabs a Soc who was going to kill Ponyboy. Beware the nice ones, oh GOD beware the nice ones!
Let's not forget Dallas' reaction to Finding out Johnny was dying from his burns. Mind you, by this point the reader already knows how dangerous Dallas can be, but seeing him threaten to put the doctor in the emergency room for barring him access to Johnny's hospital room seems to be a bit of a case of Disproportionate Retribution.
A slightly twisted variant occurs in Dexter By Design: Dex, of course, is already a serial killer masquerading as Just a Nice Guy, but it wasn't until relatively recently that he decided that he had feelings of love-ish for his stepfamily and foster sister (or, you know, anyone). So, when a rival slasher decides to mess with Domestic Daddy Dexter by stabbing Debbie and trying to kidnap his stepkids, out comes Deadly Defensive Dexter.
Adam Hauptman, from the Mercy Thompson series. Bonus points for being a literal papa werewolf; mess with his daughter Jesse and you. Will. Die.
The above also applies to Mercy. To make it worse, Adam runs a private security firm, so when he got worried about Mercy's safety, he installed an expensive security system in her house without asking her permission.
Waylander the Slayer from the Waylander series of books by David Gemmell is a rather evil version of this. Having returned home from the war to find his wife and child killed, he spends the rest of his life and wealth hunting down the eight men responsible and killing them in ways that'd make even the most villainous of villains shriek.
In Charlotte's Web the Gander threatens Templeton the Rat with serious bodily harm if he even thinks about bothering one of his goslings.
One of the recurring themes in The Catcher in the Rye was Holden Caulfield's desire to protect children from the bad things in the world.
Thrackan: "General Antilles, acting as Chief of State and Minister of War for Corellia, I hereby order you to communicate with your daughter Syal and do your genuine best to persuade her to follow whatever course of action I recommend to her. Is that clear enough?" Wedge: "Absolutely." Thrackan: "And?" Wedge: "Go to hell." Thrackan: "Antilles, you've refused a direct order given during a military crisis, and I have it on record. Should I choose to, I can have security agents haul you away right now. I can conduct your trial within the hour and have you executed by morning." Wedge: "Of course you can. You could also have me assassinated in a time of peace for having nicer hair than you. If I worried about that sort of thing, I'd never get any sleep."
Woe to you if you mess with anyone in Mandalorian Kal Skirata's biological or adopted family.
Speaking of Mandos, Boba Fett in Bloodlines is this. So is Han. They team up.
Speaking of Boba Fett, he was never a very good father (or husband), but he did his best to get close to his granddaughter, Mirta Gev. When he learns that a young Mandalorian is planning to marry Mirta, he gives his assent, but warns "Break her heart and I'll break your legs."
Howl is this after his son Morgan was threatened. He punched the guy twice. Not to mention his wife, Sophie is a Mama Bear also. In other words, don't mess with Morgan ever.
Sadrao from Ursula Vernon's Black Dogs is not the protagonist, Lyra's, biological father, but he's a more than competent replacement after her real father is massacred along with the rest of her house. Sadrao's extremely Badass and is very protective of her, even going into a berserker-like rage when she's physically threatened.
Caine. Even if you're a god, fucking with Faith will get your ass beat.
The man from The Road.
Harry Potter: Dumbledore. Harm one of his students, and he'll return the favor.
This is beautifully demonstrated when, being the Complete Monster that she is, Dolores Umbridge shakes Marietta Edgecombe violently in an effort to make her spit out enough info to get Harry expelled. Dumbledore magically pushes her away, jumping suddenly from calm and polite to highly angry. "I cannot allow you to manhandle my students, Dolores."
This is also demonstrated when Barty Crouch jr. attempts to kill Harry after the Triwizard Tournament. Dumbledore doesn't take it very well.
At that moment, Harry fully understood for the first time why people said Dumbledore was the only wizard Voldemort had ever feared. The look upon Dumbledore’s face as he stared down at the unconscious form of Mad-Eye Moody was more terrible than Harry could have ever imagined. There was no benign smile upon Dumbledore’s face, no twinkle in the eyes behind the spectacles. There was cold fury in every line of the ancient face; a sense of power radiated from Dumbledore as though he were giving off burning heat.
Papa Wolves are fairly prevalent in this series: Sirius Black does not like seeing Harry hurt, and neither does Remus Lupin. Mess with Draco Malfoy when he's at school and the next person you'll have to deal with is his favourite teacher and sort-of godfather Severus Snape, or worse still Lucius, his actual dad, with the power of the school governors and the Ministry for Magic behind him (and not to mention, Lucius's love for his family is pretty much hisonlygood trait). Arthur Weasley, while usually overshadowed by his Mama Bear wife, in Deathly Hallows, threatened Kingsley Shacklebolt (trained Auror, later takes on freakin' Voldemort) to his face when he heard that one of his sons had been badly injured and Kingsley was trying to question him. Xenophilius Lovegood was ready to hand Harry to the Death Eaters if it meant having Luna back. And Harry's Uncle Vernon who- though he often falls into the category of Bumbling Dad - is very protective of his own wife and son and is even willing to shield them from Hagrid.
James Potter as well. It may not have worked, but he was willing to risk certain death against Voldemort if it gave Lily and Harry time to run. He would also do anything to help his friends in his school days, even if he was a Jerk Jock to everyone else at the time.
Twilight: Jacob Black is a rather literal example (boy turns into a wolf) when it comes to Renesmee Cullen, the girl he's imprinted upon. Actually, this would apply to any wolf who has imprinted on a child.
Don Pendleton's The Executioner series has Mack Bolan wipe out major crime families with dozens of thugs at their disposal after most of his family is killed due to the Mafia. When his girl-friend and younger brother are kidnapped by another crime family to try to get to him, he goes absolutely coldly berserk, terrifying even his friends and allies who have seen him in action many times.
Matthew Reilly's Huntsman series. The adopted daughter of Jack West Jr. is threatened many times by many powerful people over the course of the books. Many people have died very graphic, painful deaths.
In the Back Story of John C. Wright's The Golden Age, Helion had stayed on the Solar Array long past the point of safety to protect his son — and his ship, but the priority was clear:
"Damn your ship." Helton's voice grated. "It was you. You were aboard at that time. Outside of the range of the Mentality, beyond the reach of any resurrection circuit."
Catherine Webb's Horatio Lyle. He is not related to Tess or Thomas by blood, but hurt either of them and he will come after you with his pockets full of explosive chemicals, his home-made tazer, and, if all else fails, his frenzied but anatomically-precise application of teeth, nails, and knees.
Robert Crais's Elvis Cole. Kidnap the son of his girlfriend? Elvis and his Psycho Sidekick Joe Pike will hunt you down to the ends of the earth and back again.
In Aaron Allston's Galatea In 2 D, C. J. gets into the fight because his son is in danger.
Good ol' Jim Davenport in Triggerfish Twist. Lets everyone push him around. But point a gun at his child and you will be very, very sorry, but not for very, very long.
Rao is this to Shakuntala in Belisarius Series. As he was hired by Shakuntala's father to teach her how to be a Badass Princess, that would make her father an indirect Papa Wolf.
Nastily subverted in Rick Hautala's The Mountain King. The protagonist sees his daughter torn apart and eaten by monsters, but is too terrified to leave his hiding place.
In Death: Detective Sergeant Frank Wojinsky from Ceremony In Death. When his granddaughter Alice Lingstrom told him that she had been drugged and sexually exploited by an entire coven of Satanists and she had witnessed the leaders murder a young boy, he went Papa Wolf to try to take down the coven. Unfortunately, it made him sloppy and the leaders used the drugs Digitalis and Zeus on him, resulting in him dying of cardiac arrest.
Marcus, of Time Scout, will go through hell for his little girls. So will Armstrong.
As soon as he finds out Margo's his granddaughter, Kit becomes very protective of her. Skeeter, having tried to scam Margo before anyone knew, walks very, very shy around both ever after.
The short story Monsters Tearing Of My Face has a particularly gruesome one. At the climax of the story, the little girl who drew the true picture of blue monsters tearing off her face turns out to really be a blue monster in a human disguise...when her mother tears it off of her, while her father tears the flesh from the bones of the foster parents who were about to rape her.
Buster Beasely in 1635: The Dreeson Incident. "I'm coming, Princess Baby!" To the rescue, that is. And does he ever, on a Harley and with a .45 and a knife.
Shellheart of Warrior Cats: Crookedstar's Promise is a Papa Cat, defending Crookedkit from his own mate. When she coldly tells him she blames her son for what happened to him, Shellheart is quick to defend him and breaks up with her. And when Rainflower tells Oakheart that Crookedstar would never be as good as him, Shellheart defends him with this:
Shellheart: Can't you keep your thoughts to yourself, just once?
In Felix Salten's Bambi's Children (yes, it's that Bambi), he sees a poacher taking aim at his son, and attacks.
In Tim Dorsey's novel Electric Barracuda it turns out that Serge Storms is a father. Hint to the child molester on the playground: you really don't want to try to entice the child of a serial killer.
Live Action TV
Step by Step: Frank was often the bumbling dad, much to the chagrin of eldest stepdaughter Dana ... especially when his attempts to play Papa Wolf result in (comical) failure. However, by the final act, when Frank plays things straight ... he is a very effective in warding off boys with undesirable ulterior motives. He never did this too much for younger stepdaughter Karen, as most of the sitcom dynamic was reserved for Dana's distaste with Frank. However, toward the end of the series, Frank played Papa Wolf for Al.
Little House on the Prairie: Several times, Charles playing watchdog over his daughters. More than once, Laura's husband-to-be, Almonzo, would be on the wrong end of Charles' wrath ... until Charles sees that "Manly" has pure motives. Indeed, Almonzo and Laura (despite their 10-year age difference) were a life-long couple, the (real-life) marriage ending the day Almonzo suffered a fatal heart attack in 1949 at age 92.
A very literal example is Leanbow in Power Rangers Mystic Force given that he is the Wolf Knight, when he becomes the red Wolf Warrior, he protects his son and his friends in a truly awesome battle. The same largely applies to his counterpart from Mahou Sentai Magiranger, save that all the core rangers are his children in that version.
Keith Mars from Veronica Mars, who previously gave off the impression of a Non-Action Guy, goes berserk when first season's villain tries to burn Veronica alive.
He is actually shown to be a Bad Ass throughout the show, but in between the odd times that we ever see him get in a fight, most reports we hear of his exploits (he does a lot of work out of town chasing down bail jumpers) are Offstage Heroics at best, and an Informed Ability at worst. His ability to handle himself in a fight is in fact a Chekhov's Skill.
From the same series, the domineering, abusive and murderous Aaron Echolls seems oblivious that his daughter is being beaten up by her boyfriend, even appearing interested in starring in a movie he wants to pitch. However, at the start of what looked to be a pleasant dinner he administers one of the most comprehensive beatdowns ever seen on TV, before calmly concluding "I've decided I'm not interested in appearing in your movie."
It would appear that the same protectiveness doesn't apply to Logan, though.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Elliot Stabler's kids may as well be his Berserk Button, he once almost beat a pedophile half to death for posting pictures of his (underaged) daughter on an internet site. Then again, given that the only thing that keeps him doing that on a regular basis is that he can't use torture as a means to extract confessions, and once removed of that restriction, he quite gleefully beat into another suspect...
Odafin "Fin" Tutuola also counts: he points out that if it had been his kid, there would have been no "half" about it.
A number of the female victims father found out that someone had killed his daughter and went out and killed the perp.
Ace Lightning's Simon Hollander is a mild mannered accountant - until you insult his son.
Doctor Who: "You just killed someone I liked, and that is not a safe place to stand. I'm The Doctor and you're in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up."
Also "NO FORCE IN THE UNIVERSE CAN STOP ME NOW!" when Rose's face/consciousness is stolen in "The Idiot's Lantern." I think it's fairly safe to say that you just don't mess with the Doctor's companions. Ever.
It's not just the New Series that has the Doctor going all Papa Wolf when his companions are endangered. I submit the cliffhanger to Episode 3 of the Caves of Androzani as exhibit A
When finding Sarah strapped to a rock and tortured in The Sontaran Experiment, the Doctor utterly blows his tactical righteous cool and starts swearing and trying to beat up the Sontaran leader. This does not go well for him, which he would've known if he weren't blinded by rage.
In episode Amy's Choice, the Dream Lord remarks on the Doctor's tendency to swell in masterful fury when someone he cares about is threatened.
Series 6 turns this Up to Eleven in its midseason finale, where the Doctor gathers a literal army to rescue Amy and her daughter. But this is outshone by Amy's husband Rory, who dons Roman centurion armor and a sword and fights his way through an entire Cyberman starship just to ask them a question:
Series 5, The Eleventh Doctor acts as a Papa Wolf for all of humanity to the Atraxi with a little history lesson in the first episode. Safe to say, this speech solidified Matt Smith as The Doctor for those who weren't already convinced (such as this Troper).
Atraxi: You are not of this world. The Doctor: No, but I've put a lot of work into it. ... The Doctor: Okay! One more, just one more... is this world protected? *cue montage of aliens who have attacked or threatened humanity* The Doctor: But you're not the first lot to have come here. Oh, there have been so many! And what you've got to ask is... what happened to them? *cue montage of the previous ten incarnations of The Doctor, ending with The Eleventh stepping through the image of The Tenth* The Doctor: Hello. I'm The Doctor. Basically... run.
Michael has a Papa Wolf moment in Arrested Development when trying to get back with a girl he was dating. He stops his sister and mother from physically attacking her in a restaurant for writing an unflattering article about the family. Then he hears that she told his son to stop getting in the way of Michael's happiness. He steps out of the way and tells the girl she's on her own. She promptly gets her ass kicked.
Danny "Danno" Williams in the Hawaii Five-O reboot. Moving to the other side of the continent is the least he'll do for his daughter Gracie.
Half of the episode "E Malama" is basically Danny being this. Never endanger the life of his daughter.
Danny: If you ever bring a gun into the same zip code as my daughter again, I will put a bullet in your head.
Phillip "Uncle Phil" Banks from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is known for his anger, but in the episode, Mistaken Identity, when a racist police officer arrests his son Carlton and nephew Will and refuses to let them out of their cell, Uncle Phil unleashes a verbal ass whoopin the likes of which the poor bastard had never seen.
Another example of Uncle Phil's Papa Bear badassery is when the parents of Ashley's school bully advise that they seek psychiatric help for her. Long story short, shit gets real.
In Heroes, the uber-example is Noah Bennet aka "Horn Rimmed Glasses/HRG", Claire's adoptive father. For one thing, when Claire Bennet was shot shortly after losing her powers (primarily to protect her dad), and was also slowly and painfully dying due to not having ever been sick in her life prior to this, he attempted to get revenge on Sylar by shooting him and went on a manhunt. His protectiveness of Claire Bennet and unwillingness to hurt her or let her get hurt was also what caused Claire to immediately deduce that the sniper who was gunning down the carnival members was not actually HRG, as the sniper managed to graze her in the arm, something that HRG would never have done even if he did attempt to gun down the carnival.
This is also true for Dr. Mohinder Suresh and Matt Parkman, the surrogate parents of Molly Walker. They're white hats, though, so they're not as extreme in their protective measures as Mama Bear Jessica or HRG.
Future!Sylar becomes a Papa Wolf. He's gone from a homicidal psychopath to a cuddly, waffle-making single father because he keeps his murderous instinct in check for his son's sake... and when said son in killed in the crossfire of a battle between Peter and the Company, Sylar literally goes nuclear and takes out the entire city.
Lampshaded on Angel: Lorne comments on Angel's strong "Mama Bear Vibe" when he becomes aggressively over-protective of his newborn son. The trope was shown in its full glory when Angel almost smothered Wesley to death after Wesley unwittingly made Angel lose his son.
Then there was this conversation with Lilah:
Lilah: Look, Angel, I know you've been out of the loop for a while, but I'm still evil. I don't do errands. Unless they're evil errands. Angel: I think you'll do this one. Lilah: Why? What's in it for me? Angel: Just this once, I'll ignore the fact that you're within fifty yards of my son. Just this once.
And of course, there was his little speech to Linwood in "Dad" where he promised to inflict upon him any pain Connor experiences, even when Wolfram&Hart couldn't have possibly had anything to do with it.
In Battlestar Galactica, Commander Adama has repeatedly referred to his crew as a family and came dangerously close to sparking off a civil war between the Battlestars Galactica and Pegasus in order to get "[his] men" back.
The scene where he threatens Admiral Cain is both a Moment Of Awesome and example of Awesome Music. "Prelude to War" is a masterpiece and it fits the scene so well. It makes Adama's Papa Wolf-ness that much more badass.
Earlier than that, in the first season episode "You Can't Go Home Again", when Adama puts the fleet and resources in serious jeopardy before giving up on a hopeless rescue operation to recover Starbuck. When his son, who has something of an inferiority complex with regards to the Commander's and Starbuck's relationship, asks if the Commander would have stayed so long if it had been him down there, Adama asserts that if it were him, they would never leave.
Lost: Ben, of all people, goes all Papa Wolf on Keamy's ass - but with disastrous consequences, and too late to do any good.
Very darkly used when Walt is taken away by the Others, and his father Michael not only betrays the group under their orders, but also kills Ana Lucia and Libby, all while attempting to protect his son.
Firefly's Malcolm Reynolds is a Papa Wolf, and in his case, it applies to anyoneon his crew. Threaten someone on his crew, and you are in for an extreme world of hurt.
In a similar vein, Simon is this way with his long-suffering sister River. He's normally a relatively unassuming and actually quite timid doctor who isn't that good at combat, but when River is in danger, he goes all-out to protect her.
I wonder how many times Jubal Early has gotten slammed into a bulkhead by a 140 pounddoctor, shot him and then got knocked down by him again?
And while we're at it, don't hurt Kaylee. Jayne will make you pay if you hurt her. For that matter, so will Simon. And Mal. In fact, just don't hurt Kaylee. As Jubal Early can attest, it won't end well for you. Well, he could if he hadn't been shoved into the endless void of space.
There's also "Graduation Day Part 1" where the Mayor nonchalantly mentions his plan to eat Buffy and Giles, without blinking, picks up a sword and stabs him through the chest. Unfortunately, since he's nearly-demon it doesn't do much.
Angel: Don't do that! Mayor: Oh, I will. I'll do worse! Murderous little fiend! Did you see what she did to myFaith?! Angel: I got no plans to weep over that. Mayor: Yeah, well I'd get set for a world of weeping! I'd get set for a world of pain! Misery loves company young man, and I'm more than willing to share that with you and your whore!
Another Simon, this time the Magnificent Bastard from FlashForward (2009). While definitely not a Nice Guy, he is very protective of his family, especially his younger sister Annabelle.
Aaron Stark also qualifies. Don't try to hurt Tracy. Ever.
Jack Bristow of Alias is a Papa Wolf extraordinaire for his Action Girl daughter Sydney, despite being absent for much of her life due to his job with the CIA. Some of the more memorable instances include the very first line he says in the series being him asking about Sydney's safety (deliberate on the part of the writing staff); breaking another agent's fingers in a vise after finding out he's a traitor, then shooting him in the head after he confesses to exposing Sydney's cover; and entering a fatally radioactive room to ensure her escape.
This is all nothing compared to his retaliation against his own wife, IrinaDerevko. In "Dead Drop", he believes Irina isn't genuine in her desire to help the CIA, so he rigs the safe house Sydney has gone to on Irina's intel to blow, which makes Sydney believe her mother lied to her and meant her harm. As we see in "Search and Rescue", he even executed Irina - or, a double of Irina because he believed she ordered a hit on Sydney.
Aaron Hotchner of Criminal Minds is without a doubt Team Dad to the entire team. And he is not a dad you want to mess with. Although, considering his workaholic tendencies and his eventual divorce as a result, he's often a better dad to the team than he is to his actual son. He even plays Papa Wolf to children involved in their cases.
Dave Rossi reaches Papa Wolf status in "Masterpiece" when Henry Grace goes after the team to get to him. He spends the entire interview convincing Grace he's got the power, then, in one line ("Did you get all that?") Out-Gambits Grace by revealing he's been playing Grace the whole time, slamming Grace's head against a window for going after his team.
Hotch and Rossi's co-parental status is lampshaded when team super badass/older brother Derek Morgan asks, "Where's Mom and Dad?" to which team organizer/big sister JJ responds, "Hotch and Rossi are still at the conference." No mention of which is which, but it's worth noting that Hotch's status as Team Mom has been a running gag in fandom since season 1.
Recently, Hotch invoked this trope all over the recurring villain who came after his own family. Like Fin Tutuola, above, he wouldn't — and didn't — stop at "half".
There is another episode where the kidnapper of a girl turns out to be just a lustful teenager, and the girl's father turns out to be a retired mafia hitman. Hilarity Ensues.
In Charmed, Leo spent the first half of season 6 in Papa Wolf mode after both his sons were put in danger.
In Dexter, Dexter Morgan intentionally breaks his rules for the first time in order to protect his girlfriend's daughter from a pervert, despite not having any proof that the perv is a murderer. He even compares himself to a wolf directly in the Season 3 finale, as he prepares to smash the bones in his hand in order to make his escape from King, and live to be a father to his unborn son. In general, he seems to hold a particular antipathy for any of his victims who victimize children.
In Season 5 he beats the snot out of an abusive stepdad (whose stepdaughter was friends with Astor, Dexter's own stepdaughter) and runs him out of town, partly to help out the girl being abused, but also to ensure the abuser never goes near any member of Dexter's family.
In one episode, Gibbs tag-teams with his FBI counterpart Fornell after a suspect tried to kill the NCIS/FBI agent pair escorting him.
Gibbs' own backstory involves him hunting down and executing the Mexican drug lord responsible for the death of his first wife and their daughter.
In the episode "Twisted Sister", McGee goes Papa Wolf in his effort to clear his little sister.
Sniper Gibbs shoots a terrorist holding Ziva captive in a Somalian prison, from 1,000 yards, in the seventh season episode "Truth or Consequences." Ziva's partners Tony Di Nozzo and Tim Mc Gee are deliberately captured and endure torture to give Gibbs a chance to set up the shot and rescue Ziva. In the seventh season episode "Good Cop, Bad Cop," Gibbs sends a message to Ziva's father, the Mossad director, who sent her on a suicide mission and then left her to die in Somalia, that "She is off limits!" No one messes with Ziva on Gibbs' watch.
In the fifth season episode "Requiem," Gibbs beats up a man who is harassing his dead daughter's childhood best friend, Maddie Tyler, and later rescues her from her kidnappers.
In one episode there is a Flashback in which young Gibbs is in a fight with a bully and his dad comes out and fires a shotgun in the air. Which would indicate that it's In the Blood.
Luke from Gilmore Girls, Rory's father figure, goes Papa Wolf quite a few times, one of these even leading to Lorelai proposing to him.
Cruelly subverted in Oz. When Vern Schillinger's son Andrew arrives in Oz, Tobias Beecher, Ryan O'Reily and Chris Keller seize the opportunity to get even with Vern. They help Andrew kick his drug addiction while implying to Vern that it's all a ploy to make Andrew their prag. Vern tries to warn Andrew, but it backfires. Vern eventually concludes that he'd rather kill Andrew himself than to see him subjected to a Fate Worse than Death. When the trio hears of Andrew's death, they just quip: "It worked."
Eric does this a few times in Boy Meets World. Mostly he is a Ditz and sometimes he is a Woobie. But he can be a Papa Wolf to Cory and when he stood up to a bully bigger than him it was a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
Torchwood: Team Dad Captain Jack Harkness fits this whenever his team is put in danger... especially when it's perceived to be his fault (directly or not). All you have to see is him charging in to save his team with swishing coat and one heck of a gun in "Countrycide" to realize that you don't mess with Torchwood.
Somewhat subverted in Children of Earth when Jack sacrifices his own grandson to save millions of other children.
From Torchwood: Miracle Day Miracle Day]]: Known murderer and paedophile Oswald Danes is in Gwen and Rhys' house and makes the mistake of laying a hand on their daughter. Rhys spends the remainder of the episode threatening to kill him. Danes even notes at one point that Rhys would probably do it.
Supernatural: Averted with John Winchester, who doesn't let his sons' welfare get in the way of his job. Played with in that Dean is not only Sam's older brother, but also his parent in many ways. Dean's already a Bad Ass, so don't mess with Sammy.
Actually, John has frequently shown a reluctance to put his boys in danger and even wasted one of the Colt's precious bullets to kill a vampire that was threatening Sammy. Even after he was dead, he climbed out of hell to kick Azazel's ass when he attacked the boys. If anything, John transforms from a Bad Ass to the incarnation of the Wrath of God when Dean or Sam are in trouble.
There's also the fact that he sold his soul and the only weapon that could kill Azazel (who he'd spent the past 20 something years hunting) to Azazel to make sure Dean would live. The man may not be the most stellar father, but it can't be denied that he does try.
A man named Jimmy Novak is dying, and then is told that his daughter Claire will be the vessel for the angel Castiel. He demands that Castiel use him and spare poor Claire the trauma of seeing everything Castiel has to do, even though it means he'll never see his family again. Castiel accepts, and Jimmy becomes the Soul Jar of sorts for him and the Cas we know.
Stargate SG-1: General Hammond is usually the level-headed, occasionally obstinate commander of Stargate Command. But when you threaten his people (especially SG-1), you'd better run.
When SG-1 was captured by a System Lord, he sent four teams to rescue them, and when they were captured as well and his superiors ordered him not to risk another rescue mission, he went offworld to gather help to rescue them himself. He and Teal'c end up piloting a fighter through the damn Stargate, while Hammond shows his Texan heritage with a hearty "Yeehaw!"
When SG-1 was sent back to 1969 in a freak accident, Hammond sent a note with them, which said only "Help them." His thirty-years-younger self found the note and indeed decided to help SG-1 escape custody, solely on the basis of recognizing his own handwriting.
When SG-1 was nearly killed while trying to uncover an Ancient weapon to save the planet, it was Hammond who saved them at the last minute, by personally taking command of Earth's lone spaceship and giving them enough time to save the world...again.
In Burn Notice Michael Westen often accuses his little brother of being a ne'er-do-well. But when his little brother is in trouble he'll always stick up for him. It is notsafe to pick on Michael Westen's brother.
While we're at it, it also wouldn't be wise to hurt Michael's mother.
Several of Michael's clients are as well. One takes a beating and doesn't lose his cool because his son's being held hostage. Another, on seeing a con artist who sold fake medicine that made his son's health worse jumps out of a car, chases the guy down and beats the crap out of him.
On CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Grissom (who is just about as mild-mannered as they come and at this point had few moments in which he lost his temper) gave Catherine's abusive ex an Oh Crap moment by letting out a very loud "Hey!" and looking all the world like he was going to charge down the hallway when Eddie tried to bully her.
There's also this memorable rant, showing that you do not fuck around with kids on Gil Grissom's watch:
Gil Grissom: Let me tell you something, Humbert. You're twice the age of these kids, and half of them couldn't find their own ass with a map. You prey on innocent children, concocting God-knows-what from God-knows-where, selling Russian Roulette in a bottle and you think we came all the way out here to bust you for possession, you dumb punk? I'm gonna get you for murder. Cool?
Ditto with CSI NY's Mac Taylor...it's shown up several times with Lindsay in particular. In the ep where the lab was shot up, Mac crashed through his half broken office window to pull her out of the line of fire after she basically had a panic attack apparently.
The same probably also goes for Horatio Caine on CSI: Miami.
Mama Bear and Papa Seahorse became proud parents of this trope on Alien Nation, when pregnant Newcomer George Francisco broke with his usual self-controlled civility to utterly cream a thug in defense of the fetal Newcomer in his belly-pouch.
Agent Booth from Bones won't hesitate to hurt or kill if anyone tried to get too close to Brennan. He is fiercely protective of her, escaping from the hospital despite his injuries in order to save her from a crazy ex-FBI agent.
Booth wasn't happy when Howard Epps escaped from prison. But when Epps got close to Booth's son Parker, he went full on Papa Wolf.
He's also willing to give up a promotion, raise and a trip to Hawaii to keep his little brother from being dishonourably discharged.
Matt Brennan, aka Max Keenan (father of Bones) once killed, gutted, and then burned the corpse of someone who was hired to kill his children. In an earlier episode, it's mentioned that despite being a career criminal, he tried to avoid violence whenever possible. Killed, gutted, then set on fire.
Glee: Kurt Hummel's dad Burt may not understand his son's obsession with musicals and dancing but when Kurt is refused a solo on the grounds of being of the wrong sex for it, he goes to the school and shouts at the principal and the teacher until Kurt is given a chance.
Papa Wolf status confirmed when he rips Finn a new one and throws him out of the house for calling Kurt a fag. Also a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
"What did you just call him?"
Then there's what he's inches away from doing to Karofsky before Kurt pulls him off. Which is not too long after suffering a serious heart attack and week-long coma to boot...so, simply put? Do not mess with Kurt Hummel; you won't like the results. And he didn't even know the real reason Karofsky was threatening Kurt...
Psych: Henry has his moments in cases where Shawn is in danger. 'Shawn takes a shot in the dark' anyone?
From ER, we have a few doctors who would go to far lengths to protect their patients. Dr Kovac once yelled at a father for leaving his young daughter alone in the waiting room for some time while he was working, where there were druggies and other not-so-sane people around. Another time, when he suspected the husband of his patient was abusing her, he went to confront him and was fully willing to put himself in danger (hence getting punched as a result) to prove to the authorities that the guy was a danger to his wife and others.
Another time, Ray found out his ex-girlfriend had an abusive father. He helped her get away from him and when the father tried to catch the car, Ray flattened him with a punch.
A non-parental example on the same show is Merlin toward Arthur and Guinevere. A memorable scene in season three is Merlin telling Morgana in no uncertain terms that if she dares hurt either of them, she'll be going down hard. And she does.
Clark Kent on Smallville, whenever children are in harm's way. Also Jonathan Kent and later on, Lionel Luthor.
Jonathan Kent was actually pretty legendary in this regard. One memorable scene was when Lionel tried to blackmail him again, or he'll expose Clark's secret to the world. He chose to beat seven shades of crap out of Lionel, nearly killing him, until he was struck with a heart attack, and died. He literally sacrificed his life to protect his adopted son.
Granted, the situation was not quite what he thought it was (Lionel was actually on the way to a Heel Face Turn at this time, and himself took Clark's secret to the grave 2 Seasons later), but given Jonathan's history with the Luthor family, his overreaction is understandable (and Lionel even admitted his fault in Jonathan's death).
Dr. Cal Lightman of Lie to Me may be a Bunny Ears Deception Expert who has kind of a bad-boy vibe going on. But should you so much as threaten his daughter Emily (whether you're a punk kid or a cop or a federal agent), Cal will destroy you.
Burt Chance loves his family. When his rock hero insults his wife, son, and granddaughter all at once, he gives the jerk a guitar to the back of the noggin. He even got a youtube mix out of it!
Subverted in The West Wing. President Bartlett had a very memorable rant about what would happen if something happened to his daughter Zoey, calling it "the nightmare scenario", since "this country no longer has a commander-in-chief but has a father who's out of his mind because his little girl is in a shack somewhere in Ugandawith a gun to her head!"
Played straight on several other occasions, notably when Bartlet believes a reporter has approached his daughter Ellie despite strict rules forbidding them to do this.
Toby is also a straight example before his children are even born:
Toby: I'm told that on my sunniest of days I'm not that fun to be around. I wonder what's going to happen when you make my children a part of your life.
In The Office Stanley goes after Ryan pretty hard when he thinks he may be "sniffing around" his daughter.
Prison Break: Linc to his son LJ, Michael to his nephew LJ. Alex to his son.
Linc, who is ready to tear Alex apart at the first opportunity, in season four finds out Alex's son is dead... and not only buries the hatchet but promises to help him go after the people responsible.
Floyd Henderson in Smart Guy doesn't actually get a chance to demonstrate his Papa Wolf potential, but in the episode Strangers on the Net, after TJ admitted to Floyd that a man posed as a kid on a kid's chatroom and later has the guy arrested (who also turned out to have been arrested for this sort of thing before and placed on prohibation), and was unlikely to be getting out of jail anytime soon due to breaking prohibation, Floyd remarks "Lucky for him" when hearing this, implying that he intended to do far worse to him as soon as he got out.
Ray Campbell in Sister Sister had one of these moments when the twin daughters (well, technically Tamera only, Tia only went after it became apparent that Tamera snuck out of the house in an attempt to get her back home, but her plan ended up backfiring) attempted to meet Verique, who despite his identity on the web, was actually a sex offender who often lures women into posing for dirty pictures. As soon as Ray and Lisa found this out (as well as where he lives due to directions), after the twins attempt to escape but fail, Ray and Lisa appear behind him and, in a Crowning Moment of Awesome, punches Verique in the face after Lisa shouts "What's love got to do with it, ya punk?!"
Sheriff Jack Carter of Eureka. A nice guy who'd rather avoid nuclear anything, much less the radiation that comes with it. However, when his smart house goes crazy and targets his daughter, Zoe, with a destructo raygun, he breaks out his prized World Series autographed bat and wails on the house's nuclear generator in the hopes of knocking off the power... Which theoretically would have killed him and the five people trapped in the house with him. Sorry Boss, Best-Friend, Love Interest, and two mostly innocent bystanders, Jack's daughter ranks above all of you.
Walter from Fringe was literally willing to destroy the fabric of the universe in order to save the parallel universe version of his son.
Despite Modern Family's Cameron being overly dramatic and somewhat effeminate, when he thinks there's a stranger in Baby Lily's room he jumps out of bed, grabs a baseball bat, and charges in with a Pre Ass Kicking One Liner.
Alvaro Cueva, Mexican critic of Alta Definición fame, HATES seeing children being treated as idiots by some shows, and exploited (made fun of or worse, making kids dance in ways pedobear would approve) by others.
Walt White is not too fond of people making fun of or hurting Walt Jr. or Jesse. If you do either of those, prepare to PAY for it, and pay it dearly.
Scorpius, the original Big Bad of Power Rangers Lost Galaxy goes on a rampage when he thinks the Rangers have kidnapped his daughter Trakeena. It ends badly for all involved.
In Power Rangers Dino Thunder, Tommy does not take kindly to his students being threatened. In one episode, Zeltrax taunting him with their deaths results in Tommy seriously wounding the cyborg.
Should you happen to be in a coma, whether you're listening to Life on Mars or Ashes to Ashes don't mess with anyone under Gene Hunt's protection. Don't.
In Rizzoli And Isles, Maura Isles' biological father Paddy Doyle stabbed a rival mobster in the heart with an icepick to prevent him from killing Maura the way he'd already killed Doyle's son. On the dead man's chest was a blood-stained photo of Doyle holding Maura as a baby, pinned there with the icepick. Doyle's message: "Don't mess with my family." Doyle told Maura to call him with the murderer's name and he'd "send the man a message" but Maura couldn't do it, even if it meant she would be murdered. It's strongly implied that another Papa Wolf, Jane Rizzoli's ex-partner Vince Korsak, called Doyle to protect Maura.
In Tin Man Wyatt Cain beats up, shoots or threatens anyone who comes within an arm's length of DG. Don't hurt the Princess.
Music
Rodney Atkins' 2008 No. 1 country hit "Cleaning This Gun (Come On In, Boy)," about an ultra-protective father of a teen-aged girl who — on her date night — makes sure he's polishing a shotgun in full view of her young suitor when he shows up for the date. The father and young boy have a conversation, before he makes a sly remark about the gun ... and suggests to the suitor that he will bring her home in pure condition, or else. (The implication is that the father does not want to hear of the two having sex or involved in other misbehavior, or else the boyfriend will regret it.) To make sure the boy holds to his promise, he'll be sitting up until she comes home, and he'll still be "cleaning this gun." The first verse has Atkins tell the story from the viewpoint of the teen-ager meeting his girlfriend's father, before moving forward into his adulthood, where he has to make the same speech to his daughter's boyfriend.
Nickleback's song "I'd Come for You".
Eminem. Don't fuck with his daughter or his evil alter ego Slim Shady will kick your ass.
That's the angriest thing I've ever written. Almost inexpressible rage. Someone fucks with my family, I'm gonna kill them. That absolutely primal "you can do anything you like, but if you do that I'm not responsible for my actions"
Mythology
According to The Short Stories on the Tang People (唐人傳奇 Tangren Chuanqi), the Qian Tang Dragon King had a niece that he loved very much. When he found out that her husband abused her, he got so pissed off that he rescued the poor girl and then used his Elemental Powers to flood and destroy the city she lived in, as punishment for the Domestic Abuser and the people who didn't help her in her time of need.
The only reason Poseidon made Odysseus' journey home hell was because Odysseus had blinded his son Polyphemus. Polyphemus invoked his father's favor to avenge him, and dad complied.
Odysseus tried to avoid joining the Trojan War effort by faking madness. He did this by plowing his fields and salting them, effectively ruining his own land. The emissary Palamedes decided to test Odysseus by placing Odysseus' infant son Telemachus in the path of the plow. When Odysseus avoided touching little Telemachus, his cover was blown and had no choice but to go to Troy. Odysseus later got his revenge and the last laugh (sorta) by framing Palamedes for treason and getting him executed.
Newspaper Comics
You don't want to mess with Dick Tracy's kids. You really don't.
Professional Wrestling
Uncle Elmer (Hillbilly Jim's uncle) was ordinarily an enormously fat, lazy, slow-witted buffoon. But threaten his nephew or one of his own two boys, and he might just sit on you until you beg for mercy.
Subverted with Dusty Rhodes, who tried to be this for his son Cody Rhodes in the summer of 2007 but was beaten senseless with a cowbell by Randy Orton for his trouble. After this, Hardcore Holly took over as Cody's father figure.
The biography of Marc Oberlindes, a sample character of Traveller, tells how once when his son was imprisoned he recruited a bandof mercenaries to rescue him.
In the Ravenloft setting, Rudolph van Richten went Papa Wolf on the Vistani band that kidnapped his son, and then hunted down the vampire who'd hired them to deliver the boy.
It's revealed in Van Richten's Guide to the Vistani that the originally kindly and very forgiving doctor's curse of vengeance upon that particular Vistani clan for what they did is the reason why they can never rest in one place for more than a day or two. Because with his curse that "the undead take you" as they took his son to the undead, every surviving member of the clan is forever hunted by the undead until Van Richten lifts the curse with his forgiveness.
The Space Wolves Chapter of Space Marines are this towards civilians and innocents, and will hunt down and destroy anyone who hurts one - even other Space Marines or the Inquistion.
Kill one of Sanguinius's Blood Angels (ergo: Sons) and he WILL break your spine. Likewise, if you hurt Sanguinius, the Blood Angels will tear you apart.
Captain Walker in the 1993 musical of Tommy. And he's not very happy when he discovers his wife and son with her new jerkass lover on her 21st birthday!
Silent Hill 3 further reveals that Harry killed a cultist that came after his beloved daughter.
In the Soul Series, the best way to bring Nathaniel "Rock" Adams into action is to kidnap or threaten his adoptive son Bangoo.
One of the most touching examples is Barret Wallace of Final Fantasy VII, towards his adoptive daughter Marlene. Four years before FFVII began, Corel Village had a Mako Reactor installed to the north despite the protests of the local leader, Dyne. A few days later, the reactor had an accident (and was cleaned up enough so that it seemed normal by the time the game rolls around), but it was reason enough for Scarlet to burn the village to the ground. Out of the survivors are Dyne, his good friend Barrett Wallace, and Dyne's daughter Marlene, who was adopted by the latter. With Dyne presumed KIA, Barrett adopted the infant Marlene and raised her as if she was his own daughter. Had Dyne not crossed the Despair Event Horizon and spent those years either in a psychotic state or festering in Corel Prison, he would be the one exhibiting Papa Wolf tendencies instead. In his last words, Dyne asks Barrett to keep taking care of Marlene before he he either jumps to his death or lets himself die.
Advent Children - Once Cloud decides to earn his forgiveness (and gets over the idea that anything he does to help will be too late, not enough, or both) he shows definite signs of this trope. Seriously. He uses his sword as a boomerang to take out the shadow creepers attacking Denzel while chopping through buildings to rescue Tifa from being crushed. And all he has to say about it is "Sorry I'm late." I'd call it a Crowning Moment of Awesome if it wasn't immediately followed by the fight against Bahamut SIN and the entire team tossing Cloud ''through a Mega Flare'' at Bahamut.
Final Fantasy VIII - Laguna spends much of his life doing anything he can to find Ellone.
Ichiro Tamura a.k.a Salary Man in Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan. Usually comes off as an ordinary office man who is reviled even by his own family, but... the moment he sees his daughter getting threatened by a giant blue rat, he goes "HENSHIN!", turns gigantic and starts kicking the rat's ass.
Christopher Belmont of Castlevania Adventure & Belmont's Revenge. Just when he thought he could retire from Vampire Hunting business and leave it to his son Soleiyu... said son suddenly gets possessed by Dracula. "Screw retirement, I want my son back, you son of a bitch."
Although it's widely believed that Belmont's Revenge is what happens when Konami learns their mistake from their extreme Nintendo Hard-ness of Adventure, it kinda shows off that when his son is in danger, Christopher DOES NOT lose his whip's power at one measly hit (a problem plaguing Adventure), except by one type of enemy. Papa Wolf to the max indeed.
This is the default mentality of the Big Daddies in BioShock for the Little Sisters. They will ignore you if you don't attack them or the Sisters (at the most, they'll shove you away if you get too close) but anybody who does so much as to slap them will face a very pissed off Big Daddy dashing straight at you with his drill (or shooting at you with his rivet gun), and he will not stop until one of you is dead. The sequel will allow the player to be this, since the playable character is the Super Prototype of the Big Daddies.
In fact this is the plot of the sequel. Subject Delta storms the entire Rapture trying to find the little sister he was first imprinted on, who is Eleanor Lamb, the daughter of Big Bad Sofia Lamb. Inverted in the endgame where upon donning the Big Sister suit, Eleanor tells you that now's her time to fight for you and gives you a plamid to call her by your side.
When you chose to save your adopted Little Sisters they become very fond of you. When harvesting ADAM they usually don't require much protection leaving you free to chase after fleeing splicers to impale them with your drill or give them a blast of the shotgun to the face. But even over the sound of the heaviest fighting you can easily hear the panicked scream when a Little Sister is in danger. And may God have mercy on whatever splicer is currently grabbing her arm.
In the ARG for the sequel, protagonist Mark Meltzer lets his life fall apart in favor of tracking down a Big Sister who took his daughter Cindy to Rapture. He succeeds in finding Rapture, but is captured by a Big Sister and taken to Lamb, who offers a Sadistic Choice - be executed for trespassing, or become a Big Daddy bonded to Cindy.
Lamb: Ask yourself, Mr. Meltzer... is it better to be summarily executed as an outsider caught within these grounds, or to be united not just with your daughter Cindy, but with the Rapture Family as well? The choice is yours... I urge you to accept the Protector program. You will live by her side, and remember nothing beyond your love for her. Meltzer: ...I wasn't the first to find Rapture, you crazy bitch. And I won't be the last. You do ... whatever you want to me... as long as I'm with Cindy... I'm ... I'm a happy man.
The main character in Dragon Quest V. Okay, so he's notThe Chosen One, his son is. Traditionally this means Dad will have to heroically die and the son will grow up tragically an orphan, to be strong enough to beat the Big Bad as an adult. It came close to this, but hell no! The main character and his family band together, and while the Legendary Hero is still only 8 years old, his Dad helps him beat the crap out of the forces of darkness and goes To Hell and Back to beat the King of Evil before it does anything like come to their world.
Hector of Ostia is portrayed as a potential Papa Wolf in his B support with Eliwood in Fire Emblem 7, where he tells his best friend about a prophetic dream involving his still unborn daughter and, as he mentions a redheaded boy who takes her away in the dream, he isn't very pleased to have his "little girl" courted by the other kid. Too bad Hector didn't get to be a proper Papa Wolf for Lilina, since he's killed off early in Fuuin. His Famous Last Words are pretty much a plea for Roy, Eliwood's son and the "redheaded boy" from the dream, to protect her..
However, he does play it straighter in his own route, where woe betide whoever dares harm his friends and crewmates. In fact, when Nino brings Jaffar along after their Heel Face Turn, Hector openly warns him that he has not forgiven him for killing his spy and friend Leila (also Matthew's girlfriend), and that should the guy ever step out of line, he will kill him with his own hands.
Pretty much the only real reason why Dorcas joined Lyn's group and later Eliwood's is to get enough money for the medical treatment that his Ill Girl wife Nathalie needs.
Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 has the Axe Knight Hicks, who refuses to join Leaf's army if you don't rescue the children that have been kidnapped for the child hunts, including his son Maphy. If you do, however, he will join the group without hesitation.
"Hey, I was waiting for you guys. I heard you saved Maphy, my son. Thanks to you, I was able to hide him in safe place, along with the other children. I'm Hicks, an Axe Knight of Manster. I was thinking it was about time to teach that Leidrick a lesson. I'll fight alongside you."
Also, the backstory has Fin as both the Team Dad and as one of these for Leaf and his daughter with Lachesis, Nanna. Two of the CG's at the end of the game have him protecting toddler!Leaf and running away with him after the murders of Leaf's parents, Fin's master/mentor Cuan and his wife Ethlin, and the fall of their homeland of Lester.
Flint in Mother 3 is a deconstruction of this trope. He starts out as a loving husband and father to his wife Hinawa and his twin sons Lucas and Claus. Then Hinawa is killed and Claus goes off to avenge her and disappears; torn apart by the death of his wife and disappearance of his son Flint spends most of the time out searching for Claus neglecting his only surviving child Lucas.
At the end of the first God of War, Ares casts Kratos deep into his own mind to revisit the memory of his wife and daughter dying at his own hands. In perhaps his only moment of actual heroism motivated by a desire to protect his family, Kratos staves off the doppelgangers of himself trying to attack his family.
Considering he has to hug his family to transfer his own health to them to stop them from dying, and he is fighting dopplegangers with his full strength and, in a few cases, magic, its a pretty damn good moment of heroism.
In the third game, he develops this sense towards Pandora due to the fact that she reminds him of his own daughter. Hephaestus as well, who tries (and fails) to kill Kratos to protect Pandora, who Kratos later states was doing what any father should: protecting his child.
With Phoenix Wright and Maya it's a tossup between a father-daughter and brother-sister relationship. Either way, if you try to arrest Maya he'll defend her with every last Objection! he has. If you kidnap her he'll stall the trial and call in a favor with the prosecution to keep it going until she's safe.. And if she's in actual physical danger he'll charge across a burning bridge over a hundred foot drop into an icy river to save her.
And in Investigations there's Kay and her 'Uncle Badd'. If Lang hadn't gotten in the way we probably wouldn't have to worry about giving Shih-na a trial.
For that matter, depending on what medium you're looking at, threatening any harm to Tails, the closest thing to a little brother Sonic the Hedgehog has, will show you even something as silly looking as a blue hedgehog will make you cry.
It also wasn't a good move for those soldiers to shoot Maria either. It sent Shadow on a total "annihilate all humans" kick. At least until he remembered Maria's last words, to protect humanity.
Link in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Even before he was turned into a literal wolf, he was incredibly defensive of Ilia and the kids of Ordon. The Bulbins should be thanking their lucky stars that he wasn't armed at the spring. (He got his revenge anyway when he massacred their entire camp at Arbiter's Grounds about halfway through the game, though.) He also is shown, especially toward the end, to be incredibly protective of Princess Zelda and Midna.
Rusl, from the same game, is like this too. About his own son Colin; about the other children in the village (their abduction gets him into the war as well as Link); and about Link himself, who Word Of God states he regards as his younger brother.
Just try and harm Zelda in Skyward Sword
Averted in The Godfather. Optional sidequests allow you to contract kill the sons of the enemy Dons, but this doesn't make the eventual encounter with them any tougher.
Purposely invoked in Heavy Rain, where The Origami Killer/Scott Shelby's purpose was to find a father who will do anything to save his son.
Play properly and he does. You can do it, Ethan Mars!
Breath of Fire III has Rei, the oldest in a trio of orphans that Ryu was a part of. When the group was devastated by Balio and Sunder, Rei... didn't take it very well, thinking that his adoptive family was killed, and that he failed to protect them. Around many years later, he's still in his Unstoppable Rage, targeting the criminal organization that Balio and Sunder were a part of. He only calmed down somewhat when he finds out that Ryu was still alive (in fact, it was Ryu who took care of Balio and Sunder for good). But that doesn't mean it was over; for Rei, anyway.
I can't stop! Not until I teach those guys not to mess with me...or my family!
Kazuma Kiryuu may be a yakuza, but he's usually a pretty nice and helpful guy. But if you mess with his adoptive daughter Haruka or the orphans he's taking care of... oh boy, you're in for a world of pain. In fact, he's kinda protective of every kid he meets.
The protagonist of Nier Gestalt is a man determined to go to any lengths to find a cure for the painful disease afflicting his daughter Yonah. He also displays similar tendencies towards the group he makes his True Companions.
Nier:You want me to understand your sadness? You think I'm gonna sympathize with you? I swore to protect my daughter and my friends. If someone puts them in danger, they must stand aside or be cut down! Come on, let's go!
In Nitro Family, mom and dad go on a killing spree to return their little child.
Splinter Cell's Sam Fisher. When he learns that his daughter, Sara, isn't actually dead and was removed from him to send him undercover into a terrorist organization, he goes batshit insane. He no longer chokes people unconscious, preferring to leave a trail of bodies behind him, and the black humor and psychological mindgames he used to use in his interrogations is now gone; he prefers the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique.
Chuck Greene of Dead Rising 2 spends the game attempting to raise money for/find Zombrex (Zombie infection suppressant) for his infectee daughter Katey. This means that he'll have to carve his way through a seaload of Zombies to do so. Not only that, but psychopaths with chainsaws? Morotcycles? Guns? Flamethrowers? Dad will not be stopped.
When Chuck learns that Sullivan is the key behind the outbreak, Sullivan gets a nice fatality at the end of the battle as a reward for his actions.
Professor Layton is an Actual Pacifist, a Gentleman and a Scholar, and an all-around nice person who would rather settle problems over a cup of Earl Grey and a Stock Puzzle. But as Unwound Future clearly shows us, villains who are stupid enough to kidnap his adopted daughter will find themselves pursued by a relentless Determinator who has no problem violating the laws of physics if that's what it takes to get her back.
Final Fight: Mike Haggar, who piledrove all the goons of the city he was the major of after they kidnapped his daughter Jessica to blackmail him.
Whether as a display of political power or a general Jerkass move, do not declare any intent of executing Eoleo. Briggs may back off if things get sour, but he will come at you, again and again, to get his boy back. So tenacious, does he become, that you'd have to kill him to stay his wrath. Sadly, he went out fighting after all.
In the last part of Psychonauts,Raz's father Augustus enters the combined minds of Raz and the Big Bad and helps him defeat the final boss, despite Raz's earlier belief that Augustus hated him.
The protagonist of Action Doom 2: Urban Brawl is willing to beat up a whole town full of gangsters, potentially take on a hulking Serial Killer psycho with his bare hands, and attack a guard-filled company headquarters all by himself, all to save his daughter. This actually backfires in you in one of the possible endings: your brutality throughout the game ends up making you so blood-covered and creepy that, when you finally find her, your own daughter is afraid of you and shoots you to defend the Corrupt Corporate Executive that kidnapped her.
Cyrus of Dawn of War II is one of the few who refused the power armor of a full space marine to remain a scout and train the initiates. Targeting them is a surefire way to send him on a bloody warpath.
Asura was cast down by his fellow gods and sealed away for some 12,000 years. Now that's enough to piss him off, but when he finds out they're using his daughter to amplify their power, it's time to kick some heavenly, planetary-sized ass.
The Orion Conspiracy presents Devlin McCormack. His son Danny died at the beginning of the game, and Devlin attends the funeral expressing his regret for not being a good father for Devlin. Shortly afterwards, he receives a note revealing that Danny's death is not an accident, but a murder. At that moment, Devlin turns into this trope, vowing to find out who killed Danny and kill the murderer.
Eli Vance from Half-Life 2. He manages to overcome a Combine Advisor's telekinesis to bash its face in with a pipe to try to save his daughter.
In Chaos Rings Omega, Dante is fiercely protective of his daughter Vahti, his newborn grandson Ohm, and his son-in-law Vieg (he's effectively a Parental Substitute to him since Vieg never knew his own parents). He wades through lava to save Vahti and Ohm at one point. As he slowly sinks into the lava he passes the Papa Wolf reins onto Vieg.
The male Commander Shepard in the Mass Effect series, is potentially this depending on how he's played. If played straight, threatening his crew is about the biggest mistake you could make.
In Wigu, Quincy Tinkle may be a happy, somewhat dumb guy, but if Wigu or Paisley are harmed he will go to great lengths to get revenge. To date, Quincy has annihilated an alien insect that bit Wigu, fought off a group of Plesiosaurs with nothing but a knife when they attacked the Tinkle family van, and almost murdered Hamburglar after the latter hospitalized Wigu.
In Order of the Stick, Vaarsuvius' mate and children are threatened by the mother of a young black dragon the Order had slain earlier. Vaarsuvius makes a deal with fiends to gain enough power to not only kill the dragon but use an epic spell to slay every single relative that black dragon had. His/her mate was suitably horrified.
Ed in Digger appears, for a Hyena, harmless and non-violent, to the point he doesn't try to defend himself from or leave his abusive wife (hyenas are matriarchal, as is a major theme in Digger). That is, until his violent, mentally ill spouse started beating their daughter.This did not end well.
Bob rarely loses his composure much beyond his stock look of Dull Surprise. We've seen him scared or frantic upon occasion, but the only times we've seen him furious are the times Jerry has threatened Molly with a gun. When Bob believed she'd actually been hit, he launched himself at Jerry (who was armed) and tackled him without hesitation.
The Shintulla Chieftain from Dominic Deegan gets royally pissed when Jacob apparently kills his son. Jacob'sexpression makes it perfectly clear that he knowshe's screwed.
In Megatokyo, Ed learned the hard way that just because Ibara may be a jerkass that leeches money off his daughter Junko doesn't mean he takes kindly to having a shotgun pointed in her general direction.
In The Fancy Adventures Of Jack Cannon we have that rare example of both parents being Badass and protective of their son. Not that he can't stand for his own.
In Exterminatus Now, Lothar Hex's adoptive mercenary father is fiercely protective of Lothar and his other foster son Kyle. He even threatened to cut out the hearts of the other main characters if anything happened to Lothar or Kyle because of their Inquisition work. Lothar is equally protective of his crazy mercenary family — he and Rogue nearly killed each other when Rogue refused to believe Kyle selling weapons to cultists was just a stupid mistake and threatened to kill him and Lothar's dad.
Goblins has Pan, a blind ogre, fulfilling this role for Yala, a mute, disabled kobold who acts as his 'pilot'. Threatening Yala while Pan is nearby is a good way to get yourself brutalised, as the dwarf in this strip finds out to his cost.
And on the Kickassia DVD, the Ask That Guy segment is not so much an ATG episode but more like Doug slamming the Fan Dumb who thought certain producers shouldn't have been included.
Rob Walker is usually a calm guy who is more than willing to admit if a Critic episode didn't come out great, but go too far with insulting Doug and he'll switch to big brother smash mode.
The Nostalgia Chick: Mr. Ellis (Lindsay's father) didn't exactly take kindly to fanbrats who thought her abuse of Nella was real. The full quote is on her page.
Whether you're a bad comic, a bad film, or a bad game, do not mistreat young children unless you want a very angry reviewer raging at you.
Jessi Slaughter's "You Dun Goofed"dad. He wouldn't hesitate to backtrack Trolls' messages and report them to the cyber-police should they harass Jessi or screw around with their computer. In short, come near his daughter, and consequences! Will never be! The same!
Freighter captain, Neal Foster is made of this as well.
Nathan Forester is like this when it comes to his friends, especially Andria.
Western Animation
Batman: The Animated Series: Again, Batman's one principle is to never take a life, but if you dare to enslave innocent children to steal for you like The Sewer King did, you better damn well pray that he does hold onto it.
Batman: I don't pass sentence. That's for the courts to decide. But this time, this time, I am sorely tempted to do the job myself.
In "Over The Edge", we see justhowfar Commander Gordon will go out for Batman if Barbara is ever killed in the line of bat-duty.
Don't forget Batman's reaction in the infamous flashback in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker... when he was beating the heck out of The Joker after the latter revealed that, he not only kidnapped, but subjected Tim-Drake!Robin to three weeks of electrocution-based torture as well as truth serum, and then turned him into a grotesque miniature version of the Joker. He even states "I'll break you in two!" in a very chilling manner.
Darkwing Duck, whose Tomboy daughter Gosalyn has a habit of getting into trouble like making a Deal with the Devil or releasing an evil trickster spirit. He even finds himself unable to leave the Mirror Universe without merging the two because he can't help thinking of Gosalyn's counterpart as his own daughter. And yes, he has worried about his enemies using her to get to him.
In general, threatening Gosalyn is an easy way to make him quickly get over his ego and kick your ass five ways at once.
And when Elisa was shot in her apartment (accidentally by Broadway), Goliath tore through the city to get the gangster he believed did this. When he did find the gangster Tony Dracon, he was willing to kill the guy right then and there for what he (supposedly) did to Elisa.
In American Dragon Jake Long the dragon trait skipped a generation, so Jake's mother can't protect him from the supernatural threats he encounters — instead it's Jake's grandfather who does so. Never mind that he even stands up to the Dark Dragon's minions when his entire family is threatened... and obliterates them single-handedly.
Jake's dad OTOH, despite being an ordinary human, gets a couple good moments. He manages to save his son from some kind of winged, moose thing during a camping trip, and later saves him again from a bunch of vampires.
Charles Ofdensen, the band manager in Metalocalypse, is seen by some fans to be the Papa Wolf of metal band Dethklok. He is extremely protective, preparing and executing elaborate security measures and counter attacks for their concert in the first season finale; going against assassins twice his size in hand-to-hand combat; having Rockzo the clown beaten and tortured on two occasions for being a bad influence on the youngest member of the band; and warning another manager attempting to take over his position that he would have to kill him to keep him away from the band. And then killing that man himself.In a swordfight.
To drive that point even further, the villain was his own brother, Orm. And Aquaman didn't give a single thought about kicking his ass and letting him die.
King of the Hill: Hank Hill. Whether it's a Jerkass boss putting Bobby in danger at his job, or a Jerkass football coach abusing Bobby and his teammates after losing, they quickly learn the hard way just how dangerous an angry Hank can be. One would think they'd know not to mess with someone who's so into propane. And propane accessories. (Otherwise, though, Hank is something of a "Well Done, Son" Guy.)
Thug:"I thought that old guy inside was your daddy." Bobby:"No, no! This is my daddy! This one right here, the one with the golf club!"
Dale, too, even after learning that Joseph is "part-alien."
Danny Phantom: Ever seen a Bumbling Dad battle and win against a 50-foot-ghost monster? Congratulations, you have been pwned by Jack Fenton. Now leave his kids alone.
In The Fairly OddParents, even an Adult ChildBumbling Dad like Mr. Turner is capable of fighting with teeth and paws to defend Timmy. Just watch the episode where Timmy wishes he could merge with dad's Cool Car, then Vicky steals the car and he believes Timmy is stuck in it...
Both of Timmy's parents, despite being comically irresponsible enough to leave him with an evil babysitter, have gone to crazy lengths to protect Timmy. This came to the fore when Timmy wishes they had superpowers, and he ends up using this to his advantage when convincing them to give up their powers.
Don't forget the end of the Fairly Oddparents movie, where Papa Wolf dad and Mama Bear...mom team up on Mr. Crocker for abusing their son. Much ass kicking ensues.
Actually, Mr. Turner technically could be counted as a literal "Papa Bear" at that point.
In case you don't get the joke, Mr. Turner had recently had his hands turned into bear's claws after saying he'd tear someone apart with his bare hands
Tom and Jerry: We all know Jerry Mouse is no push-over in regards to Tom the Cat. But if Tom ever lays a paw on Nibbles/Tuffy, the local Heartwarming Orphan and Jerry's adoptive pup, he's in for even more of a pain in the tail than usual. Nibbles/Tuffy's introductory episode leaves the deal very clear; Tom spanks the little mouse and, after releasing himself from a trap and checking on the other's well-being, Jerry lets out an enraged lion roar and brutally beats up Tom.
You also don't mess with the local neighborhood bulldog Spike's son, Tyke, in any fashion, though that really should be obvious.
Agent Six in Generator Rex is this to Rex. Heck, just watch him in "What Lies Beneath" or his fight with White Knight.
Even Peter Griffin on Family Guy is capable of this now and then (even if the rest of the time he is an outright Abusive Parent). An episode centered around him becoming more protective of Meg after she almost drowned in a flood, even going so far as to smash stuck-up Connie d'Amico's face into a glass surface until it was a bloody pulp for making fun of her. In another episode, Stewie gets nabbed by Disney World employees who force him to sing for the customers, and Peter manages to save him and outrun a dangerous security guard. Stewie even hugs him for it at the end.
American Dad also does this. "Surro-Gate" is a good example, as it shows a Camp Gay who previously solved fights with dance moves out of West Side Story punching out Stan in one hit after he kidnaps the guy's daughter.
Stan: That's not campy. That's not campy at all.
Stan despite his Jerkass tendencies certainly has traits of this with his children as well, should we ever forget what he did to his own boss for insulting Hayley.
Private of The Penguins of Madagascar has shown this. When the penguins are tasked with taking care of an egg in shifts, Private is so horrified by the other penguins' rough handling that he steals the egg away and snaps at Skipper.
The Venture Brothers: Brock Samson is the Alpha Papa Wolf whenever someone threatens the Venture family. See Victor. Echo. November. for the naked, murderous evidence.
Tale Spin: Though obviously not shown to the same extent as Rebecca, Baloo has traits of this around Molly as well (likely to further emphasize his chemistry with the former). Whether she's been kidnapped by bandits, zapped by a microscopic ray, or just wants her Christmas wish to come true, Baloo is pretty insistent she come out of it all with a smile on her face.
Dr. Doofenshmirtz of Phineas and Ferb may be an incompetent villain, but don't even try to hit on his underage daughter unless you want to quickly be teleported to another, monster-filled dimension.
Perry the Platypus, especially when it comes to Phineas and Ferb. There was one time when Friendly Enemy Doofenshmirtz indirectly threatened Phineas and Ferb with his latest scheme, Perry quickly beat him up, handcuffed him, and called for backup all within ten seconds.
Happens again in the movie Across the Second Dimension. Perry didn't break his masquerade even when a robot punched him across the room. But when the robot was ordered to do the same thing to Phineas and Ferb, he immediately jumped up and punched the robot just as hard.
The cartoon version of Beetlejuice is typically an easy-going prankster whose main interest is driving the rest of the Neitherworld crazy. But on those rare occasions when Lydia is in serious danger, Beetlejuice will show just how he got the title of Ghost With The Most. Insulting or humiliating Lydia is also a bad idea, as Claire Brewster found out the hard way on more than one occasion.
The Ren & Stimpy Show ... In "A Visit To Anthony," Ren and Stimpy are severely intimidated by Anthony's father. And they have every reason to be. He's very large, heavily muscled, despite his age, and unlike most of the "lummoxes" seen in the show, he is not only healthy-looking, but reasonably intelligent. Just getting a threatening speech from him puts the fear of god into you. His silent rage is even more frightening when coupled with his weeping when he thinks his son is in danger.
Race Bannon from The Real Adventures Of Jonny Quest is pretty much this to his only daughter, Jessie. Also, to her friends Jonny and Hadji.
As is Dr. Quest.
The Simpsons: In the episode "Simple Simpson," Homer Simpson sees the Rich Texan making Lisa cry. He then throws a pie in his face. He would have beat the man, but he was told he'd go to jail if he committed another assault.
He has gone great lengths for his children despite how people think of him as a Jerk Ass, like when Maggie was having trouble finding easter eggs, and trying to help Bart with his homework and Lisa become popular.
Hakoda also has some signs of this. Even though Katara is a very powerful Waterbender and Sokka becomes a great warrior, he will stay behind and be captured by the Fire Nation in order to let them escape. There is also his reaction to Katara's announcement that someone was threatening Kya in "The Southern Raiders." When he hears his wife is in danger, it is obvious that if that Fire Nation sailor doesn't haul his ass out of there double time, he will find out just why the Water Tribe hasn't been overthrown yet.
YMMV on that particular scene, as we don't see much of a reaction. Everything else between Hakoda and his kids certainly suggest he counts.
Fire Lord Azulon could be seen as a much darker version of this to his older son, Iroh. When his younger son Ozai tries to usurp Iroh's right in succession, Azulon is so enraged he orders Ozai's innocent son Zuko be executed to teach Ozai a lesson. Fortunately, Zuko had a Mama Bear of his own to prevent this.
Even Avatar Roku is shown looking out for a certain troubled great-grandson of his. At the Fire Temple, Aang channels his spirit to pwn the evil Fire Sages, Zhao, and his soldiers... and then Roku melts the chains holding the good guys and Zuko, letting them all escape before he destroys the temple.
Randy and the other dads sometimes do this, though they're so stupid it doesn't really work out very well.
And the season 15 finale has Kenny, as Mysterion, defending his little sister Karen from a bully at the school they went to when their parents got arrested.
Ratchet from Transformers Animated doesn't like to hear his friend Omega Supreme, who he mentored during the war, being threatened. Of course, Omega is a Person of Mass Destruction built to end the Great War, so this doesn't happen often, but...
Ratchet (to the Autobot High Council): Omega Supreme is one of us. An Autobot. A friend. Harm one circuit on him and you'll answer to me.
It should be mentioned for the un-initiated, that Ratchet is both an old man and a medic, with no offensively designed equipment. Yet you still don't doubt that he could very well hand them their asses on a plate if pressed.
In the animated series Kissyfur, Gus, Kissyfur's dad is this to his son as well as to the other children. Simply put, if you put them in danger, you'd better be prepared to be thrown halfway across the swamp. You would think that Floyd and Jolene, the 2 gators on the show, would have learned their lesson.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Master Splinter made sure that his adopted sons could take care of themselves, but if you happen to be, say, a Knight TemplarMIB-type planning on experimenting on them, you'd better pray he doesn't find out.
Somewhat off-screen in Winx Club and crossing with Mama Bear is Oritel (Bloom's Dad). After both he and his wife think both their daughters to be dead, they according to one account went completly berserk at the ones responsible; the Ancient Coven. Considering how high they are in among other's Faragonda's and even Baltor's regard, that says something about the power which was unleashed. Ouch...
The Smurfs: You don't threaten Papa Smurf's little Smurfs unless you want to be on the receiving end of one of Papa Smurf's potions.
When Egon of The Real Ghostbusters was literally paralyzed with fear by the Boogey Man, he found the strength to escape his bonds when the Boogey Men threatened the Junior Ghost Busters, a trio of children he had been mentoring.
Ben 10 may be well able to protect himself thanks to the Omnitrix, but on one occasion, his father ended up attacking a High Breed with a BFG for threatening him. Considering how powerful the High Breed had been up to that point, doing that is pretty dang impressive. Ben's uncle Max has also shown traits of this.
And Ben grows up into one in at least one timeline. Kevin 11,000 hurts Ben's son Ken. Cue Ben going Way Big and pummeling Kevin into the ground in an Unstoppable Rage.
Spongebob Squarepants: Spongebob of all people has this for his pet snail Gary. He's only stood up to his boss Mr. Krabs on a few occasions, one of which involved him not being himself at the time and two others being him being pushed over the edge by a great deal of abuse the entire episode. However, on one occasion, Krabs used Gary to steal money for him thanks to him somehow being a living change magnet, something that Spongebob had already told Krabs hurts Gary. When Spongebob finds out, he instantly chews Krabs out for it without a second thought. On another occasion, Spongebob became the adopted father of a bunch of baby worms and this part of him awakened once again. He tackled Larry (the strongest guy in town) when he tried to eat them, then disabled a truck by tearing the engine block out of it with his bare hands to stop it from running over them. Also manages an inversion in one episode when his criminal cousin Blackjack apparently kidnapped his parents, overcoming his crippling childhood fear of Blackjack to confront him. Turns out he hadn't kidnapped them but it still counts.
Real Life
Truth in Television. Normally, adrenal glands and the brain's limiters make it so that you only use around 20% of your muscles and maintain a thought of self-preservation. Putting a loved one, child, or sufficiently close friend of somebody in danger is the fastest way to see the brain release said limits and let adrenaline kick in. All thoughts of self-preservation (and just about everything else that makes shy, meek people shy and meek) are overridden, and it is quite likely that several dozen of your bones will be broken (if you are lucky) before they let up. People who manage to enter Tranquil Fury instead of all-out anger are even more dangerous.
Wolves mate for life, and a male wolf will fight even to the death to protect his mate and offspring (in the last case, often in a tag team with Mama Wolf). He is also involved with raising the pups, taking charge of the youngsters, and teaching them how to hunt. (Hence, trope title.) Swans also mate for life - they might look serene and peaceful and cute, but just try to touch a cygnet when Papa Swan is nearby. I dare you. (...Did we mention that the wingbeats of a mute swan can break a human arm?) In contrast to papa wolves and mama bears, however, Real Life papa bears are more likely to kill and eat their cubs than anything else... usually causing their mates to go Mama Bear on them.
Forget Swans. Don't you dare bugger with the boncies, they'll swoop down and smash your skull with their beak. Without even stopping. Probably a good thing they ony live on isolated Scottish islands.
Male lions are protective of their own cubs. Other males' cubs, however, are fair game.
Same-sex couples do occur in swans and other monogamous birds, which sometimes get to raise kids. Now try getting anywhere near a cygnet with two Papa Swans.
Forget wolves. In all ratites, large flightless birds like the ostrich, it is the male that has the sole task of incubating the eggs and raising the chicks, no input whatsoever from the mother, which is done with the family after laying the eggs. So the male, now with a bunch of eggs and later chicks to raise alone, gets monstrously fierce. All ratites, from emus to rheas and even the small tinamous, attck anyone and anything daring to get close to the eggs/chicks, but the cassowary is the one that genuinely earns the price, for it has been able to horribly maim and even kill people just to protect its young.
There's a very good reason Papa Goats have big horns.
True of piranhas, believe it or not. Piranha eggs are guarded by their father, who'll take bites out of anything that threatens them until they hatch.
Real life ganders aren't far removed from the one in Charlotte's Web mentioned above. The goslings are cute, fuzzy little things, but you must resist the urge to pet them if you don't want both the goose and the gander to tear you apart.
He was frequently noted to have treated his students like his own children, making his Heroic Sacrifice and Papa Wolf reactions all the more heartbreaking. Unarmed and faced with a cold-blooded killer, Librescu did the only thing he could to protect his students and used himself to barricade the door.
Tom Wanyandie, a 78 year old Cree Indian wilderness guide who fought off a literal Mama Bear attacking his son while screaming every profanity of his native language.
Bruce Lee was known for taking challenges from aspiring martial artists. During the making of Enter the Dragon, a Too Dumb to Live challenger snuck into their home and scared his two children, Brandon and Shannon. An enraged Lee put the idiot in the hospital with one kick.
Vance Flosenzier, who fought off a motherfucking shark when it was attacking his nephew. Not only did Flosenzier immobilize the shark and free his nephew, he then dragged it to shore so that park rangers could shoot it.
Sun Quan, leader of the southern kingdom Wu during China's three kingdoms period. When Cao Pi declared himself emperor of the powerful northern kingdom of Wei, Sun Quan agreed to act as his vassal. But when Cao Pi requested that he send his son Sun Deng to the north as a hostage (and therefore a guarantee of loyalty), Sun Quan cut off relations with Wei, declared himself emperor of Wu, and basically told Cao Pi to bring it on.
Quite sadly, Sun Quan eventually did outlive Sun Deng, who died of an illness. Based on some of his irrational and self-destructive decisions in the following years, it appears Sun Quan came noticeably unglued as a result.
Supposedly professional wrestler Kensuke Sasaki actually adopted Katsuhiko Nakajima, who debuted in the business in his teens, to act as this both in physical presence and through the Kensuke Office organization, which is essentially a "brand name" for their family (Kensuke Sasaki and his wife, female legend Akira Hokuto also have two biological sons) and affiliated wrestlers.
An Inversion of this is when Scipio Africanus the great hero of The Roman Republic saved the life of his father at the Battle of Ticinus. According to another version it was a loyal slave which leads one to cynically suspect that the slave got shafted when the tale was told. Of course it could have been Scipio and the slave working together and in fact it is not unlikely. But in any case this story was an example of "cub wolf" saving Papa Wolf. Of course this cub had pretty sharp teeth and came from a Badass Family.
Another possibility is that the slave was adopted as his son, not unheard of in Roman times.
Paparazzi don't bother Johnny Depp's family at home. Why? Because he's told them in no uncertain terms that if he catches any of them sneaking around his home taking pictures of his kids, he'll bite their nose off.
He once swung at a paparazzo with a piece of wood for trying to take pictures of partner Vanessa Paradis while she was pregnant with their daughter.
This Papa Wolf in Florida stormed onto a school bus to confront his daughter's bullies. Read more about it here.
Reminds this troper of her step-father: "Thishim?" Cue Tranquil Fury that preceded her to high school..
Jody Plauchet was abducted and raped by his karate instructor. Jody's father Gary planned for 10 days to kill his son's rapist and did so as he was being walked through an airport terminal. Despite a clear cut case of 1st degree murder Gary Plauchet only plead guilty to manslaughter and served 5 years probation.
There are some quite gruesome stories about what the Russian government does when a Russian diplomat is kidnapped. Things like mailing them a photo of each of the hostage takers-inside a crosshairs. Or reciprocally kidnapping an associate of the original kidnappers and then sending a package to the hostage takers containing-a finger. The Russian government is not the most benevolent of governments, but when it comes to situations like this You do not want to mess with Mother Russia.
May 31, 2011, a bank robbery took place in Sarasota, Florida. As soon as the incident began, US Staff Sgt. Eddie Peoples placed himself between the robber and his young sons, then advised them to hide under some chairs and moved other chairs to cover them. Eventually the robber pointed his gun at one of the sons and said that if anyone tried anything, he'd shoot the kid. After the man left, Peoples followed him and used his own van to block the escape vehicle, then disabled the robber with hand-to-hand combat. In an interview with news sources, Peoples said "You don't threaten people's children."
This Ohio man who, after hearing his three year old son's screams upon falling into a well more than 40 feet deep, scaled the well's walls down to the bottom to ensure that nothing bad would happen to his little boy before the fire department arrived.
In 1871, seven-year-old Mary Winchester was kidnapped by Burmese tribesmen. At this, the Lieutenant Governor of India sent guess who after them and persuaded them to release Mary in about three months. Queen Vickyconsiders hurting her subjects to be Serious Business.
Male deinonychosaurs were the ones that brooded the nests.
A man from Turkey saw his four-year-old son fall from a fifth story balcony and immediately jumped after him Pushing against the balcony to gain momentum, the man grabbed his son mid-fall, wrapped his arms around him and then turned his own body over so that he would hit the ground instead of his son. The child was left completely unharmed while the father suffered from a broken shoulder and ribs.
