Proud Warrior Race Guy - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Proud Warrior Race Girl; Proud Warrior Race

"Pick up the sword. The fight must be fair."

"To defeat you in such a manner would be lacking in honour. I prefer to beat my opponents the old-fashioned way... brutally!!"

—Dinobot, Transformers: Beast Wars

"You ask a krogan if he'd rather find a cure for the genophage, or fight for credits, and he'll choose fighting -- every time. It's just who we are, Shepard. I can't change that. No one can."

—Urdnot Wrex, Mass Effect

A specific subtrope of Blood Knight, the Proud Warrior Race Guy seeks battle and bloodshed because his culture teaches that doing so is the greatest source of personal honour and glory. This Proud Warrior Race will often be based on one of several real world cultures who are perceived to have acted this way, such as the Samurai, Spartans, Vikings and Mongols. The Proud Warrior Race Guy is almost always a hero. If evil, he will probably be the Worthy Opponent.

"Proud", in this case, meaning "Psychotically Violent". Critiques of this position will be met with: "You do not understand". May occasionally overlap with the Always Chaotic Evil race, though the two are usually differentiated by the Proud Warrior having a strict Code-of-Honor, while the Chaotic Evil race has no real rules and does cowardly or underhanded things. If the Code-of-Honor is too alien for humans to understand, or too xenophobic to allow cooperation, then the heroes will treat the two groups as the same.

While most commonly seen in science fiction programs in the guise of Rubber Forehead Aliens, the Proud Warrior Race Guy is not limited to that genre. Consider Hawk in Spenser For Hire, B.A. in The A Team, and (arguably) Tonto in The Lone Ranger or Kato in The Green Hornet. This trope currently tends to be limited to SF because applying it to human races really skirts the bounds of current racial sensitivities. You don't see a lot of the Noble Savage anymore either, except as alien races, for the same reason.

Species that are essentially talking animals based on predatory creatures, like the obligatory catgirls in some Sci Fi anime, are also apt to be of this type.

Interestingly enough, the best-known characters of this type in recent TV history not completely covered in makeup and prosthetics (Worf, Tyr, and Teal'c) are all black; Ronon Dex is played by a half-Hawaiian actor wearing his hair in dreadlocks. Whether (and if so, why) this is a key component of the Proud Warrior Race Guy is an open question. (See also Scary Black Man.)

See also Blood Knight. See Warrior Poet for what happens when the Proud Warrior Race Guy becomes more developed. Often is fond of being In Harms Way. They often are of the mistaken belief that this means they have a Badass Army, but often are proven wrong.

Writers using this trope often seem to think that the "warrior" is somehow superior to the "soldier", who obeys orders (sometimes illegal ones, unfortunately) and actually wins wars...as the samurai and Junkers can well attest.

For an occasionally politically-problematic sub-trope, see Proud Adopted Warrior Foreigner.

Examples:

Anime

The Saiyajins (Saiyans) (Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Goten, Trunks, and several others) from Dragonball Z, Dragonball GT and associated movies, though only Vegeta and the others raised in his culture really have the personality. The other Saiyajins still tend to enjoy fighting and getting stronger, usually just for fun.
- It should be noted that Goku later comes to terms with the Saiyajin pride, and accepts the fact that he is a Saiyajin, indicating that despite past flaws, he too shares in this same Pride of Warrior Race, albeit not to the massive and violent extent that Vegeta and those raised under the Saiyajin Race do, although one can say they were only like this due to being under Freeza's reign of control.
  - No, King Kai explains that they've always been that way. "How many Saiyans does it take to build a rocket ship?"
Done very well on the anime Wolfs Rain, where the four main characters were all Proud Warrior Race Guys, but some of them had huge doubts about the whole thing — and while some of them become Warrior Poets, they were very unusual ones.
The Zentraedi race (divided into "Zentran" and "Meltran", or male and female, sides) from Super Dimension Fortress Macross are examples of this trope.
- Klein Klan of Macross Frontier is a Worf of sorts for the Zentraedi in this most recent entry into the franchise; while she isn't a raging berserker most of the time (although after a certain event in the plot she gets rather terrifying), she is extremely proud of her heritage and generally doesn't miss a chance to remind people of Zentraedi superiority in combat and warfare whenever possible. Hilariously, she also suffers from some Worf Effect given how often she gets a hole blown in her power armor... and of course, to her profound and continued annoyance, when she's "micronized" down to human size, she's only about four and a half feet tall.
Technically, the Pillar Men in Part Two of Jojos Bizarre Adventure are a proud warrior race of vampires, but in practice only Wham counts. (Santana is mindlessly destructive, ACDC is a Jerkass showoff, and Cars is power-mad.)
The Ctarl-Ctarl, the race of cat-people from Outlaw Star, seem to qualify, but really only Aisha Clan-clan seems to care about conquest and honor, many other members of her race are just normal workin' folks.
The Aswad in Mai-Otome.
Touka from Utawarerumono is a Proud Warrior Race erm... wing-eared girl.
The Jovians from Martian Successor Nadesico are actually just a bunch of normal humans who became Proud Warrior Colony Guys, basing their society off a martial interpretation of a Super Robot show. Their named mecha pilots particularly exemplify this.
In One Piece, the giants that come from the island of Elbaf are proud warriors in the tradition of the Vikings. The first two giants the crew meet, in fact, take this to the extreme by fighting for a century (a third their lifespan) over a quarrel they've both long forgotten purely because their honor is at stake. Also: Wiper and the other Shandian Warriors.
Pai Thunder from Dangaioh initially refuses to team with Naive Everygirl Mia Alice because she is not warrior-like. As it turns out, Pai is genetically predisposed to violence, because she is really Barius, the daughter of pirate warlord The Banker. Once her father tries to force her kill one of her classmates and Mia bails her out, she accepts Mia's leadership

Comic Books

Starfire from Teen Titans is a Proud Warrior Race Girl, in the original comic version anyway. (In her "first meeting" with the Titans recalled in a later episode of the TV series, she was this way too, making her "later" Genki Girl personality seem rather puzzling.)
Prince Acroyear of the Acroyears, from Marvel's toy-licensed comic, Micronauts. Worth noting because he's one of the earliest mass-market appearances of the Proud Warrior Race Guy as a stock crew member on a Space Opera Cool Ship. If anyone can find an example that predates his 1979 debut, please let us know! It's also worth noting that he's portrayed as dark-skinned, despite otherwise-alien features — i.e., "played by an African-American". That's not just incidental, either: a major plot point has his albino brother driven to madness/evil/betrayal by his perceived inferiority.
- Leela, from Doctor Who, is from 1977.
Wildstorm's Zealot is a pretty standard (female) example of this trope. Her entire race, the Kherubim, is equal parts Proud Warrior Race and Nineties Anti Hero.
The Kree in the Marvel Universe. To a certain degree the Skrulls have this too.
- And the Shi'ar. Nice variety in your aliens, Marvel. Then again, I suppose it makes some sense that the proud warrior races have already conquered most of the less aggressive aliens.

Film

Chewbacca in Star Wars. Consider how honourable it really is to pull the arms off your opponent when they beat you in a board game.
- However, we never see him pull off the arms of anyone for beating him in a board game. One suspects that is a threat which he would never really carry out. In all likelihood, Han was just messing with C-3PO.
  - You've obviously never played Lego Star Wars.
  - It's also one of the funniest thing in Lego Star Wars, actually. Regardless of who it's done to.
  - If you want to get into the mess that is the Extended Universe, Chewbacca would probably sooner shoot himself than do this, since the Wookie's code of honor forbids fighting with bare claws.
  - "Claws" being the keyword, as they are retractable and used only for hunting. Punching and ripping arms off sockets does not require said utensils (Chewie punches a lot of baddies in the movies).
- Ripping somebody's arms out when they're a robot (and thus easily repaired) isn't quire the same as doing so to a flesh-and-blood being who would die of blood loss and/or shock from it, either.
The title creatures in the Predator movies.
- Well, they're more like Proud Hunter Race Guys. But so damn proud of hunting that they even stalk Aliens as big game.

Literature

In Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, trolls appear to be a Proud Warrior Race, but are actually just durable enough that hitting each other with clubs isn't particularly harmful. When they become aware they can't do this to humans, they're usually Gentle Giants.
- A subversion in a different angle is also explored first in the book The Wee Free Men: the title refers to the Nac Mac Feegle, six-inch high kilt-wearing blue tattooed thieves, whose swords glow blue in the presence of lawyers. They have their own sort of honor and are powerful allies, if you can understand a word they say, and are properly fairies (they guard those really nasty thistle flowers, because they need fairies too!)
  - Pictsies!
  - Also they actually use their Poetry and Music for WAR!
  - A good Gonagle (Feegle musician; named after William McGonagall, reportedly the single worst poet in all of human history) can make your ears explode after three bars of the mousepipes.
Very common in heroic fantasies, especially those derived from Tolkien and/or Dungeons And Dragons, where non-human races tend to experience extreme Flanderization. A well-known (though mild) example is the dwarf Gimli from The Lord Of The Rings.
- Speaking of Tolhien, how could you not bring up the ~~Land Vikings~~ Rohirrim?
  - Hello? Uruk-Hai? Their literally bred for warfare.
In Larry Niven's Known Space, the Kzinti are a race of giant warcats. But while the Kzinti are a warrior culture devoted to conquest, they find out the hard way that humanity is much, much better at it. (The Kzinti mainly conquer much more primitive races, and rarely fight each other, so "war" isn't really something they've had mcuh practice at.)
- In stories which occur during the wars with humans, the Kzinti are more like Blood Knights. They are far more brutal and have no problem with killing off people for any reason, while a Proud Warrior Race Guy tends to be more noble and spares non combatants.
  - Of course, by the time of Beowulf Schaeffer and Louis Wu, Kzinti culture has been forced to mellow, after their most ruthless and aggressive members have been killed off by generations of war with humanity — which is why the aptly-named Puppeteers nudged the two races into war in the first place.
- They're also the likely inspiration for the Kilrathi.
  - And for "likely" one can substitute "virtually certain." Feline aliens are common enough, and not unlikely to be Proud Warrior Races. However, Kzinti and Kilrathi are burly rather than lithe, which is rarer. They're also both bright orange and have markedly similar names. As a presumable tip of the hat, there's a planet in Privateer named "Niven."
- The Kdatlyno in the same setting are also strong candidates, with an element of Warrior Poets as well.
Subversion: In the sci-fi trilogy The Damned by Alan Dean Foster, humanity is the proud warrior race. By virtue of being the only species in the galaxy that has evolved to be able to stomach fighting and killing other sentient beings, without fainting out of horror or revulsion, humanity is freakishly strong (capable of breaking other species' bones just by swatting their hands away), enormously resilient and completely batshit crazy. So much so, in fact, that the galactic community refuses to grant humanity citizenship for centuries after co-opting them to fight in a war against the Scary Dogmatic Aliens.
- Foster used this much earlier in his novelization of The Last Starfighter: one of the reasons that the Star League has to go to such lengths as hiring an interstellar Con Man to recruit from planets so primitive they aren't even on the map is that the "civilized" races have put war behind them ages ago. Those few with a talent for violence - the Starfighters - are considered dangerously psychotic by most of their own people.
The Dothraki from A Song Of Ice And Fire are based on the "violent raider" image of Mongols while the ironborn are a viking-ish culture, but resemble more pirates than the historical vikings.
- The Wildlings also count, and really the Westrosi themselves have large aspects of this as well.
Mandalorians from Star Wars, particularly in the expanded universe. Species that first show up as enemies usually turn into Proud Warrior Races as time goes on and they're not at war with the New Republic.
- The whole idea of the Proud Warrior Race is deconstructed by the X-Wing novel Starfighters of Adumar— sometimes fatally straight (the low overall competence caused by the emphasis on dueling and killing for honor) and sometimes for laughs (as when one such duel interrupts a Will They Or Wont They moment). The Adumari are humans, but humans can have hats too. Throughout the book Wedge finds the Adumari way of life repellent - the only way anyone can work their way out of poverty is by putting their lives on the line, royalty can't be parents to their children, and everyone's killing each other. Now and again he says something about it - "Are you fighting so that your family will be proud over your grave, or so they can be proud when you come home?" - and he really gets wound up over the issue. Turns out that it's really only one nation that's so obsessed with honor in combat.
  Wedge: "Circular thinking. I'm honorable because I kill the enemy, and I kill the enemy for the honor. There's nothing there, Cheriss. Here's the truth: I kill the enemy so someone, somewhere - probably someone I've never met and never will meet - will be happy. [...] I told you how I lost my parents. Nothing I ever do can make up for that loss. But if I put myself in the way of people just as bad as the ones who killed my family, if I burn them down, then someone else they would have hurt gets to stay happy. That's the only honorable thing about my profession. It's not the killing. It's making the galaxy a little better."
The armoured bears in His Dark Materials. Ahem, let me rephrase that: Polar Bears that build their armor from meteorite iron. As their king put it, "War is the sea I swim in and the air I breathe." This same trope is subverted in the third book of the trilogy, when we meet the Gallivespians, who are a fierce and vicious assassin-race who are born with poison spurs in their heels and ride about on dragonflies, because they're all about six inches tall.
The Aiel from the Wheel Of Time, characterized as something between an Expy of Dune's Fremen and a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of various Native American groups, have constantly warred against each other for centuries. The warriors live by ji'e'toh, which in the Old Tongue means "honor and duty"; as an example of this code, if a warrior holding a weapon is touched without being harmed, he owes a debt of honor and must be made an indentured servant for a year and a day. The only thing that can stop an Aiel? Learning that 3,000 years ago their entire culture was pacifist.
Little Bear in The Indian in the Cupboard...although, to be fair, he is an Iroquois warrior.
Several characters in War And Peace, mostly because joining the army and fighting for the fatherland is seen as one of the best ways to achieve fame and glory.
In the novel Agent Of The Terran Empire the protagonist Imperial secret agent Dominic Flandry is kidnapped by a race of Proud Warrior Race Guy. They sneer at him for being part of the "decadent" Empire. It takes him quite a bit of work but he winds up corrupting them all into fighting a civil war over power. He points out that their whole system of honor wasn't really too embedded into the culture, otherwise he could have never convinced so many to abandon their principles when power was offered to them.
The Drizzt novels were originally supposed to be about a Proud Warrior Race Guy, Wulfgar son of Beornegar of the Tribe of Elk (one of the barely-Viking-ish warrior tribes of the northern region of Faerun), captured in battle and made an indentured servant by a dwarf king. He eventually went out the way all Proud Warrior Race Guys want to — defending friends and family from a great menace, and succeeding. Of course, he didn't stay dead for more than three books — but that was over six years of world time.
- Drizzt himself is basically a Proud Warrior Race Guy, having grown up for around 30 years in an underground city full of vicious assassins who are trained from birth in the most efficient, vicious ways of killing living things. His homeland is, in essence, a gigantic, sadistic special forces unit (his race possess remarkable prowess in the areas of stealth and unit tactics, while at the same time possessing a huge superiority complex over all other living creatures including each other and having a vicious sadistic streak, making them more Arrogant Warrior Race Guys). It sounds like he's even more noble and sacrifice-loving than any Proud Warrior Race Guy ever, but he possesses a remarkable survival instinct and is portrayed as too Bad Ass to actually die, even when he tries self-sacrifice. He does die once, in a duel to the death against his archenemy, but only for one page, not counting the year between the end of the book he dies in and the very first page of the next.
To some extent, the centaurs, and to an even greater extent, the giants in Harry Potter.
Okonkwo, from Things Fall Apart, is a proud warrior race guy. Anything that doesn't involve beating someone up is womanly. This also makes this trope one of the oldest ones in the book.
- Deconstructed in that he lives out his life in fear being weak and fearful, and his fear of seeming week leads him to quickly give in to society's demand that he kill his adopted son, and eventually to kill himself rather than live with the Europeans.
The Haruchai in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant fit this trope to a T, what with the practice of sending their 500 best warriors to aid the Lords of the Land, replacing any who fall in battle as soon as his body is returned to his family. They also dislike the use of any weapons or magic—in the later books, they decide to prevent anyone else from using Earthpower, as such power in the hands of mortals leads only to destruction in their eyes.
- And take a headlong plunge into Lawful Stupid.
The Batu of Zadaa from The Pendragon Adventure. They live on a hot planet with scarce water, and hostile creatures all about. Becoming a warrior is a necessity.
The Scylvendi from the Second Apocalypse take this trope to a scary extreme. They call themselves "the People of War" or sometimes just "the People." To them, war is both the method and object of worship. Cnaiur, the main Scylvendi character, scoffs at the concept of a Holy War. To him, all war is holy.
The Icecarls of The Seventh Tower. Brought up under a warrior tradition, all their great epics and stories seem to be about people dying heroic deaths on the Ice. Tal, the protagonist, at one point thinks to himself, upon finding a skeleton in a cave, that it couldn't be an Icecarl skeleton, because it is unarmed.
Minotaurs in the Dragonlance books.
The Canim (wolf-people) and the Marat (barbarians) of Codex Alera fit quite well.

Live Action TV

Worf from Star Trek The Next Generation and Star Trek Deep Space Nine, as well as just about every Klingon ever to appear on the series (exception made for Worf's son Alexander).
- And by extension, the Worf equivalent in Star Wreck, Dwarf, and his race, the Plingons.
- Star Trek Enterprise actually deconstructed and reconstructed all in the same episode. "Judgement" had Captain Archer being tried for crimes against the Klingon Empire in an homage/copy of Star Trek VI. What set the episode apart is a lengthy discussion Archer had with his counsellor about the nature of honor and glory among Klingons. His counsellor explained that the society originally encouraged honorable positions such as doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc. But that the culture eventually shifted towards a glory filled warrior base. "Kill something, whether it be strong or weak, it didn't matter, then we go to the bar and gloat about our conquest." Eventually the counsellor was given a short prison time along with Archers' life sentence for speaking out. Archer was rescued, but the counsellor stayed to endure his prison sentence so he could peacefully try to change the culture. In the end, it isn't that being a warrior is bad, it's when being a warrior becomes everything that trouble occurs.
- Subverted in Star Trek Voyager with Klingon-human hybrid B'Elanna Torres, who thinks Klingon culture is over-rated and blames it for everything that went wrong in her life. She does however become more accepting of her heritage over the course of the series.
Tyr Anasazi from Andromeda
Teal'c from Stargate SG-1. It should be noted that, apart from being a Warrior Poet, Teal'c is actually extremely kind, loyal and friendly. His tough side really only comes out when he's with enemies.
- He even becomes ironically aware of this role as the series progresses, such as a tenth-season episode that ends with SG-1 enjoying a poker game:
  A true warrior... knows when to fold 'em.
Ronon and Teyla from Stargate: Atlantis
D'Argo from Farscape (who also parodies this trope in a Season four episode by remarking, "You know, I've never put this into words... but I love shooting stuff. And I'm very good at it.")
- Now be fair: The powers behind Farscape encouraged Anthony Simcoe (D'Argo) to subvert this archetype at every opportunity, even excluding the various whacky/gay D'Argos from the various mind-screw episodes. D'Argo was basically an inexperienced teenage father when he was imprisoned. He consciously struggles with his own violent impulses, only ever really wanted to just earn his honor in battle and then settle down, become a farmer and grow wine. He had a sense of humor and grew to appreciate human culture, while becoming cynical of certain aspects of his own culture. He also was elected Captain of his ship by the last season, which acknowledged how he had outgrown his immaturity.
- Further subverts the archetype in one of the episodes in which the crew lands on earth. A police officer discovers them on Halloween however Noranti saves the day by drugging him with a powder which causes him to imagine D'Argo taking of his 'mask' to reveal the obligatory large African American (or Australian in this case). This troper must sadly admit to being slightly confused when as to who the random white guy was when watching a video of an interview with Anthony Simcoe.
The Sontarans and Ice Warriors in Doctor Who. And the Draconians. And the Sycorax, sort of. Man, there are a lot of these.
- When your hero is a Technical Pacifist, who else would his enemies be?
- Also an allied Proud Warrior Race Girl in Leela, who combined this trope nicely with Hot Amazon.
- Most of these examples are also notable for being the LEAST powerful enemies the doctor faces. They are almost always outmatched by ordinary human soldiers when it comes down to a straight-up fight, especially in the renewed series.
Subverted in Angel. Lorne's race are a proud warrior race. Lorne is a lounge singer/psychic who wants nothing to do with them or their culture.
The Warrior Caste of the Minbari on Babylon 5 had this attitude, to some degree, especially the more fanatical ones who refused to accept the seemingly nonsensical surrender to an almost-wiped-out Earth. Of course, the war itself was somewhat nonsensical, but that was the Religious Caste's fault.

Music

The Barbarian in Ayreon's Into the Electric Castle fits this trope perfectly. He constantly brags about the battles he's fought and dies when his pride drives him to go through the Sparkly Door of Death.

Tabletop Games

The Vorox, a race of large, primitive, aggressive, six-limbed furry aliens from the Fading Suns roleplaying game. To make them appear extra-special cool with cream on top, the authors even gave them their own special alien martial arts style.
Another roleplaying game example: The Falar and the Tulgar from the Spacemaster Privateers universe. Both races are anthropomorphic animals: The Falar are large humanoid felines... ah hell, let's be frank, they're damn catpeople (with subraces looking like tigers, lions and other large cats); they are aggressive, competitive, psychotically arrogant "proud warriors" who look down on anyone they consider weak (or pacifist). The Tulgar are humanoid lupines that look like upright walking wolves, somewhat taller than humans; their culture revolves around the concept of honor and loyalty to the family; their knights fear dishonor above all and follow a chivalric code. And yes, they dress vaguely Asian. Can you say "samurai"?
Minotaurs in Magic The Gathering, especially the character Tahngarth.
The Clans of BattleTech are extremely socialist and honor-driven societies divided cleanly into five castes - with the warriors taking the top rank.
- they fight to see who gets to fight (trial by conbat)
Given the nature of the Warhammer 40000 setting, the description sort of applies to most races that are still around to be described, but it applies best to the Orks, whose entire culture, biology, nature and philosophy is built for "Waaaagh" fare.
- There's also the Space Marines and the Sisters of Battle, who are both raised-from-childhood fanatical warriors, as well as many Imperial Guard regiments. The Catachan Deathworld Veterans, for example, come from a planet where simply living to adulthood is an accomplishment, and the Cadian Shock Troops begin live fire exercises before being taught to read and write.
- There's also the Eldar of Biel-Tan, whose Craftworld is mainly run not by farseers, but by exarchs and autarchs. Anyone who thinks the Eldar hat is being clairvoyant, manipulative bastards has never met the Swordwind.
- While they may lack in honour, Dark Eldar are certainly extremely proud and definitely a warrior species. Every single one of them is a fighter - they have slave labour to take care of all non-combat activities; except torture, which they do personally.
- No mention of the Tau fire caste?
For that matter, darn near everything in Warhammer, from the fairly standard-issue Dwarves (except with GUNS), Brettonian Knights, hilariously feral Orcs, the men of the Hordes of Chaos, the single-minded Saurus warriors of the Lizardmen...
- And let's not forget the various types of elves, from the High Elves and their single-minded Swordmasters, White Lions and Pheonix Guard (not to mention the fact ALL elves forms part of a really quite deadly citizen levy) to the Wood Elves and their bloodthirsty wild hunt. Of course those are the two nice elven factions. Dark Elves happily mix this with Axe Crazy and a single-minded worship of their god of war.
In Dungeons And Dragons, most dwarven cultures are portrayed as strongly militaristic and belligerent, but still honorable and friendly to their allies. Hobgoblins, on the other hand, run closer to the "psychotically violent" end of the scale as a culture of grim, rigidly regimented raiders; other "savage humanoids" like orcs, gnolls, and bugbears also have cultures based around violence (they are there for players to slaughter en masse, after all), but lack the hobgoblins' formal militarism. 4th Edition has the dragonborn, a new race of mercenaries and warriors who value honor and loyalty.
- The Tuigan tribal nation in D&D's Forgotten Realms setting were a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to the real-world medieval Mongols, and as such had a militant society revolving around mounted combat. This changed when their emperor, Yamun Khahan, died; the survivors of the horde either integrated into the local agrarian populace or went back to the steppes, where Yamun's son started encouraging them to settle down in towns and sponsored peaceful contact with their neighbors.
- The elves of the Valaes Tairn in Eberron are essentially what happens when Klingons, Mongols, and the Vietcong are given a scimitar and let rip. The literal worst insult in their culture is accusing someone of disgracing the blood of his ancestors - and if you say this to one, he will gleefully cut you in half.
- There are also the Ysgardian natives, who love fighting and tends to challenge everyone to a duel to the death... Forgetting that non-natives don't get back up at the end of the day. Oops.
Werewolves. Full stop. Both games present Glory and Honor as symbols of rank in werewolf society, and the Garou of Werewolf: the Apocalypse are explicitly defined as "the warriors of Gaia." The Get of Fenris (from Apocalypse) and the Blood Talons (from Forsaken) are probably the purest embodiment of this trope, though.
- Another Old World of Darkness example: the trolls of Changeling The Dreaming. One book says that the various kiths of changelings are born from dreams of mankind; trolls are born from dreams of honor. They're some of the greatest warriors in changeling society, and their very nature holds oaths as vitally important.

Video Games

Orcs in the Warcraft Universe, starting from Warcraft III.
- Tauren, from the same setting, are a race of Proud, Wise Hunter Gatherer Guys.
- The Vrykul, being essentially nine foot tall vikings, are also an example. They are more on the "Psychotic Klingons" side of the spectrum, altho they are extremely honor-bound.
- Orcs from Final Fantasy XI are also like this, although more of the "Psychotically Violent" variety.
  - The Elvaan, also from Final Fantasy XI fit this trope, being all about chivalry and such.
- And finally, the Orcs from the Elder Scrolls setting.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance's and A2's bangaa fit this. They're more along the lines of Always Chaotic Evil(with the exception of Migelo) in Final Fantasy XII though.
- They don't really fit. They're irascible and easily irritated, and will pick a fight easily, but they don't have any code of honor nor any idea that fighting is good. They just find it fun. However, in the Tactics Advance games, you can arguably apply this trope to absolutely everybody in the entire world, since it seems that everyone joins a clan and beats up on each other.
Bringing us to the Kilrathi, from Origin/EA's Wing Commander series of video games.
Kratos from God Of War, who loves doing things "For the glory of Sparta!" His wife denies this, stating: "Sparta? You did this for yourself."
- In fact, most depictions of Sparta (most recently 300) tend to have them (at least their ruling class, the Spartiates) as a city-state of proud warrior guys. Ancient Sparta itself may have been a real-life version of the trope, along with many other warrior cultures of history.
One of the few things established about Samus Aran from Metroid is that she's a Proud Warrior Race Girl - raised by the Chozo, her constant pursuit of battle is in memory of their warrior tradition... it's a pity most of the actual Chozo abandoned this for scientific and philosophical pursuits, or the Chozo might still be around.
The Protoss in StarCraft, especially Fenix. Only the Dark Templar seem more down to earth.
- This might be because most of the Protoss characters encountered and played in the game are members of the Protoss' warrior-caste (The Templar), StarCraft being a war game. Members of the civilian/artisan/scientist/laborer caste (The Khalai) justifiably don't make much of an appearance.
Mass Effect has the disciplined turians and the thuggish krogans, the latter of which are brilliantly deconstructed: the krogan are so violent and vicious that when afflicted with a Depopulation Bomb that is killing off their entire species by making them unable to breed, they can't even organize themselves to develop a cure; instead, the majority of them simply hire themselves out as mercenaries and spread out across the galaxy.
- Humanity in the setting has an advantage simply by not being this, and fighting in a more detached and strategic way. For example, the human military is not big enough to have a major presense everywhere, and so relies on highly mobile fleets that can get to a trouble zone quickly. The result is that at the end of the game only the humans can get reinforcements to an unexpected battle in time to make a difference and save the day.
Star Control 2 gives us a total of three species of Proud Warrior Race Guy: the thuggish Thraddash, the vaguely Scottish Yehat and the vaguely Japanese Shofixti.
- Should be noted that the Shofixti were uplifted by the Yehat and essentially raised to mimic their values (the way you'd want your kid to take up your job I guess)
- The Thraddash could be considered a subversion of this trope. They're a proud race of warrior guys...and as a result every time they reach any respectable level of technological advancement they nuke themselves into the stone age. By the time you show up, they're on Culture 19 of this recurring pattern and their ships tend to be very easy to kill.
The Trophies from Super Smash Bros are an entire species of Proud Warrior Race Guy since all they do is fight, or watch people fighting. The trophies consider not being able to fight like being dead.
The Sangheili/Elites from Halo play up the "Proud" aspects of this trope. The book "Cole Protocol" plays this up to near Wall Banger extremes. Think of imperial Japan on crack. Mind you, the viewpoint character is the equivalent of a shogun, so the ruling classes may just be Allways Chaotic Jerk Ass.
- Also the Jiralhanae/Brutes, for the "psycho klingon" side of this trope. Think the Turian/Krogan side presented in the Mass Effect entry.
- How proud are the Elites you say? Many of them die because they ran out of ammo and refused to use a human weapon, even if it was better than what they had...so instead, they just rushed the human front.
The four-armed Shokan race of Mortal Kombat, particularly Sheeva from MK3.
The Minmatarr from EVEOnline.
In Huxley, the "Alteraver".
The Tarka in Sword Of The Stars are both a stellar example and a shining subversion of this trope: They are warlike and view war as a method for gaining status and glory, but they are also a race of pragmatics with a very practical outlook who consider fighting 'honourably' and 'fair', and the concept of the Heroic Sacrifice, to be very odd at best. In one of the universe's backstories, a human gains a Tarka's respect after he challenges her to a fist-fight and wins by leading her into an ambush by all his friends, who pelt her with sling stones — by thinking outside the box, he proved himself a warrior in her eyes.
The Spartan Federation in Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri, as its name implies. Ostensibly, its ideological emphasis on military power is just being Crazy Prepared, but what is shown of its culture in the novelizations and in-game quotations also qualifies this faction as a Proud Warrior Race.
The Helghast from the Killzone series seem to have evolved into this by the second main game. Their capital city of Pyrrhus is largely a run-down dump, except for the military academies and the Imperial Palace; the characters even comment on this. Also, there's one instance of Enemy Chatter where it's made plainly clear that the soldiers of the Helghast hold their civilians in a high degree of contempt.
The Minotaur Firewalkers from Puzzle Quest Challenge Of The Warlords. Though all Minotaurs seem to be born fighters, only the Firewalkers (basically Warrior Priests) care about the other stuff like honor.
Okku the bear "god" in Neverwinter Nights 2 Mask of The Betrayer. One conversation reveals he is following you due to a debt owned to a previous Spirit Eater. Another conversation with carrion eating spirits (and his combat taunt "eater of carrion") shows he finds such behavoir disgraceful.

Web Comics

The Antreyki from Triquetra Cats, anthropomorphic Proud Warrior Race which demands all members at a certain age enlist in the military.
The Jägermonsters from Girl Genius, who are an army of humans mutated into supersoldiers by the Heterodyne family, and loyal first and foremost to the Heterodyne family. In addition to their long lives, prodigious strength, and accent-inducing fangs, they appear to have built a religion... around hats.
The Basitins from Two Kinds. Their military prowess is rather nullified by their paranoia, xenophobia and extreme prudishness, all of which keep their population small, isolated, and begging to be wiped out.
Felucca from Earthsong.
The Galapagos from Terinu, being deliberately genetically engineered to be even more aggressive than humans by their creator. The lead Galapados, General Gisko, subverts this trope slightly, being shown to be a loving and gentle husband at home who frets over his wife's pregnancy.
Subverted in Quentyn Quinn, Space Ranger! Groonch proudly embraces his supposed warrior race heritage, but he was raised with very little knowledge of his species. The protagonist (of a different species) informs him that only a handful of extinct tribes fit the bill.
Erogenians in The Challenges of Zona

Western Animation

Dinobot, in Beast Wars, despite the fact that he's the only member of his race who acts that way. Nobody ever mentioned this on the show, though... Presumably, they knew better than to say so within earshot of Dinobot.
Hawkgirl from Justice League. She celebrates in the Christmas Episode by....starting a barfight. Wonder Woman and Aquaman are borderline cases.
The appropriately named Warmonga and Warhawk of the Lorwardians (Get it?) in Kim Possible.

Real Life

A case of Truth In Television, as the British Empire (and others) had the designation 'Martial Race' to describe just these sorts of peoples. The most familiar result of this concept are the Gurkhas in the service of the British Army. Of course, the truth of the classification is itself up for debate, so it might be a case of Possible Truth In Generalisation, which lacks an article.
- That said, it's hard to deny the appropriateness of this trope for, say, the Gurkhas, and the Rajputs in general.
The Real Life Vikings believed that only warriors went to the mead-hall of Valhalla (and got to fight again every day, just for fun). Those who died of other causes went to cold, barren, cheerless Hel, or just disappeared, depending on the how good people they were and which modern theory you subscribe to.
- There was a loophole to that. If you happened to be dying in bed for whatever reason, you had the option of taking your dagger and hacking the 'victory' rune into your own torso. They figured that if you were badass enough for that, you deserved a place in Valhalla. (Makes sense - can you blame a Viking for not dying in battle, if he's so good that he always wins?)
  - You could blame the Viking in question on account of not having been chosen by a Valkyrie, since their whole schtick was to choose the warriors for Valhalla, and would therefor rearrange the battle so that they could collect their warrior while in top form. Doing such things as chaning the trajectories of the arrows. Of course if you are bad ass enough to even avoid a death tailored by demi-goddesses...
- Don't forget the honored dead had a 50/50 chance of going to Fólkvangr (Freya's realm) instead of Valhalla. Some interpretations make the divide whether you were what we call here a Blood Knight (Valhalla) or if you were defending your home and loved ones (Fólkvangr). Other versions make Fólkvangr open to anyone who died "nobly."
The Mamluks. Originally a warrior slave caste in the Egyptian Sultanate, they were intensively trained to be the perfect soldiers, and were taught the furusiyya, a code of courage, generosity and battlefield (particularly cavalry) tactics. They were repeatedly sent to battle against the Crusaders, and are considered a major reason why most of the Crusades failed. They eventually took over Egypt, ruling for hundreds of years, even beating the Mongols, of all opponents, in 1260. It took Napoleon to finally beat them.
- The Jannissaries were Christian children converted to Islam and became the Sultan's personal guard. [[BFG And they packed heat]]
For that matter most cultures have some aspect of this. Maybe HUMANS are a Proud Warrior Race.
- Truth In Television. Consider the point of storytelling: to take some aspect of human life and examine it at length. We wouldn't be writing about Proud Warrior Races if it weren't pertinent to us somehow. Having said that, to be a Proud Warrior Race, honor-from-beating-up-enemies would have to be central to human culture, and, it isn't, so we as a species don't count.
  - How dare you? I'm gonna kick your ass!
SPARTANS!
- Oh yes. If you weren't a Spartan warrior, it meant you were one of their slaves. And if you won every war you fought in and died in bed, you didn't even get a headstone.
Maoris. 'Nuff said.
- I believe the correct plural is Maori. My history teacher has drilled this into our heads.
The Romans and the Prussians, though known for far more than their fighting prowess, nevertheless held military values in high regard.
The Celts. They were so nasty they scared the bejesus out of the Romans and actually managed to sack the city at one point.
The Mongols traditionally learn to ride a horse as early as they can walk, and even today are known for their archery. Is it any wonder that these guys conquered so much of Asia?