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"To defeat you in such a manner would be lacking in honour. I prefer to beat my opponents the old-fashioned way... brutally!!"
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".
While most commonly seen in science fiction programs, 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 African-American. 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.
Examples:
Live Action TV
- Worf from Star Trek The Next Generation
- 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 counselor about the nature of honor and glory among Klingons. His counselor 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 counselor was given a short prison time along with Archers' life sentence for speaking out. Archer was rescued, but the counselor 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.
- Tyr Anasazi from Andromeda
- Teal'c from Stargate SG-1 (also a Warrior Poet)
- 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.
- The Sontarans and Ice Warriors in Doctor Who. And the Draconians. And the Sycorax, sort of. Man, there are a lot of these.
- 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.
Comic Books
- Hawkgirl in Justice League is a Proud Warrior Race Girl. (Though, oddly enough for an Amazon, Wonder Woman isn't.)
- Starfire from Teen Titans is another 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.
- Wildstorm's Zealot is a pretty standard (female) example of this trope.
- The Kree in the Marvel Universe. To a certain degree the Skrulls have this too.
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.
- 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 Zentran and Meltran from Super Dimension Fortress Macross are examples of this trope, one side for each gender.
- 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.
Literature
- Literary subversion: In the 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 tatooed 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!)
- Also they actually use their Poetry and Music for WAR!
- A good Gonagle (Feegle musician; named after William McGonnagle, 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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, he owes a debt of honor and must be made an indentured servant for a year. The only thing that can stop an Aiel? Learning that 3,000 years ago their entire culture was pacifist.
- The Indian in The Indian And The Cupboard.
- 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.
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, while Wonder Woman and Aquaman are borderline cases.
- The appropriately named Warmonga and Warhawk of the Lorwardians (Get it?) in Kim Possible
Videogames
- Orcs from World of Warcraft.
- Orcs from Final Fantasy XI are also like this, although more of the "Psychotically Violent" variety.
- Tauren are also like the Warcraft Orcs too...albeit to a much lesser degree.
- This troper feels the Tauren are, instead, a Race of Wise Hunter-Gatherer Guys, whose warrior traditions are less developed than their hunting traditions, and primarily for self-defense.
- Orcs in Dungeons And Dragons are more craven in battle than this trope (allowing for different interpretations in different campaign settings, of course), though hobgoblins fit a bit better.
- Final Fantasy tactics Advance's and A2's bangaa fit this. They're more along the lines of Always Chaotic Evil in Final Fantasy XII though.
- Not really-the only important Bangaa are a negatively-portrayed bunch of killers and the positively-portrayed, inexplicably Scottish adoptive father of Vaan, Migelo. So they don't really seem to have an hat at all, not counting being large lizard people.
- Bringing us to the Kilrathi, from Origin/EA's Wing Commander series of video games.
- 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.
- 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 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Also the Jiralhanae/Brutes, and possibly the Jackals, though the Elites are the most prominent example.
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 a race of constructs built 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 Bastians 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.
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.
- The title creatures in the Predator movies.
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.
- Practically anything that can fire a weapon in Warhammer 40000 falls under this.
- The new edition of Dungeons and Dragons has Dragonborn, a new race of mercenaries and warriors who value honor and loyalty.
Other
- 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.
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