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alt title(s): Proud Warrior Race Girl; Proud Warrior Race "To defeat you in such a manner would be lacking in honor. 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 honor 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. They are often a Martyrdom Culture. 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. The better sort of Code of Honor will enforce Would Not Shoot A Civilian, although often civilians are dismissed as too weak and cowardly to be good fighters, and so they get passed over in the search for worthy enemies.
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 and Barbarian Tribe. See Warrior Poet for what happens when the Proud Warrior Race Guy becomes more developed. Often is fond of being In Harms Way, and is a Glory Seeker wanting to be Famed In Story. They often are of the mistaken belief that this means they have a Badass Army, but often are proven wrong. May be from a Martyrdom Culture.
Writers using this trope tend to think of the "warrior," the lone fighter whose final authorities are his own goals and his own conscious, as superior to the "soldier," who obeys orders and does what his superiors say. WWII saw two warrior-ethos cultures lose to three soldier-ethos ones, but that doesn't always happen — see this book .
Compare and contrast with Humans Are Warriors.
Examples:
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- The 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 Saiyans still tend to enjoy fighting and getting stronger, usually just for fun.
- It should be noted that Goku later comes to terms with the Saiyan pride, and accepts the fact that he is a Saiyan, 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 Saiyan Race do.
- 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
- Pokemon. Many of the creatures themselves have an intelligence slightly beyond the law of the the wild, and several are stated to only follow the orders of trainers who have earned their respect.
- Interestingly inverted in Princess Mononoke; although Ashitaka does come from a tribe of historical proud warrior race guys, by now they just want to be left alone, and he only fights when he has to (or when his curse makes him). It's actually San, who was Raised By Wolves, who's the berserker type.
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. 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. 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.
- Every other alien race in The DCU seems to be composed of warriors. The Khund, The Thanagarians and the Daxamites, for example.
- Wonder Woman is a Themysciarian warrior.
- The concept of a proud warrior race was deconstructed with the Wolrog Empire, who appeared in a long Strontium Dog story when Starlord merged with 2000 AD. The Wolrogs are psychotic, vicious, cruel, sadistic, genocidal maniacs who live only for battle and death, and are feared and hated by the other races in the galaxy. They tend to kidnap innocent people to serve as captive soldiers or slaves to fuel the war effort. In the same comic, Wulf may be an example of the more noble variety.
- The Mighty Thor and the rest of the Asgardians. Loki and Amora the Enchantress are considered cowards and deviants for using magic, dirty tricks, and deception, as they dislike fighting and only fight as a last resort.
- Fezzik from The Princess Bride. In the film, he insists on fighting the Hero "as God intended; skill against skill alone. Sportsmanlike!" Westley replies, "You mean... I put down my sword, and you put down your rock, and we try to kill each other like civilized people?"
- Chewbacca in Star Wars. Consider how honorable 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).
- And seeing how Chewbacca treats C-3PO when he really does get dismembered in The Empire Strikes Back, Chewie is more like a Gentle Giant.
- 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.
- And there's also the Mandalorians. When you think of it, the clone army is a proud warrior race by itself. Especially the ones that been trained by Jango himself.
- 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.
- The Mangalores in The Fifth Element. They won't fight without their leader.
- The Furyans from The Chronicles of Riddick are described by director David Twohy as a "warrior race," though we never really meet any in true Proud Warrior Race mode. One is a traitor hiding his heritage; one is a convicted murderer who doesn't fight honorably.
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.
- The importance of honor in Klingon culture changed over time. Klingons in Star Trek The Original Series and in the associated movies, who are mostly filling the role of designated Federation antagonist, aren't hesitant about winning in dishonorably sneaky ways (the Organian peace caused direct warfare to be less of an option, in any case).
- Tyr Anasazi from Andromeda, many other Nietzschean prides cross over into Always Chaotic Evil territory, but it's not universal, some even count as WarriorPoets.
- 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.
- Ronon and Teyla from Stargate: Atlantis
- Hawk in Buck Rogers And The Twenty Fifth Century. He is also something of a warrior poet.
- 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.")
- 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).
- Aeryn Sun, when not denying her Peacekeeper past, is one of these. In addition, Rygel has occasionally claimed to be a warrior king, and even Crichton will comment on human's combat prowess.
- Humans are superior!
- 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.
- The Uvodni in The Sarah Jane Adventures are a subversion. It turns out that they only fought to ensure peace on their world, and the Ship's Computer lead them to beleive that the war was still going, even thoguh it had ended ten years ago.
- 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.
- 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 honor, Dark Eldar are certainly extremely proud and definitely a warrior species. Every single one of them is a fighter - they have slave labor 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 in The World Of Darkness. 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.
- In Traveller the Aslan and the Sword Worlders are this. The Aslan are creatures that look like lions to humans, and have a stern code of honor. All male Aslan are theoretically warriors and most useful occupations are done by women. If someone does a designated female occupation they are considered female in Aslan language. More easily understood by the fact that only 1/3 of Aslan are male . Sword Worlders are humans that admire Germanic warriors of yore and think in a manner remarkably similar to Aslan though men are allowed to actually work. This Tropper has noticed that that could cause embarrassments if an Aslan is surprised that the enginner of a passing Sworld Worlder ship is male. And among both of them embarrassments can have awkward results.
- Talislanta has quite a few. Thralls and Ahazu come to mind. (The former are basically magically-created clone troopers. The latter are a race of four-armed Blood Knights with a habit of going "shan-ya" in battle.)
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.
- Trolls are a much more ruthless and usually xenophobic flavor of Proud Warrior Race Guy. Only the Darkspear and Zandalar treat other races with anything besides general contempt.
- 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.
- The Orcs from the Elder Scrolls setting.
- Final Fantasy Tactics Advance's and A2's bangaa fit this. They're more of a regular kind of citizen 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.
- The bird-like Garif of Final Fantasy XII's Ivalice do fit the bill. Their entire society (apart from the "worshipping the mysterious crystals" thing) wholly revolves around battle, and great honor is given to brave war-chiefs. This doesn't keep them from being wise, patient, and generally benevolent to honorable visitors.
- Kimari and the other Ronso in Final Fantasy X and are even more so in Final Fantasy X 2.
- Arceans in Galactic Civilizations
- 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.
- It doesn't matter how many ships you have, the Human doctrine is still the right way to do it for the navy as long as you have the level of mobility that Mass Effect navies have. The importance of not splitting one's fleet is paramount and one of the reasons Mahan was so influential was because he got that exactly right. It's simply inane to not take as much fleet as you can into a battle, when the usefulness of your firepower increases quadratically (because killing enemies means they can't kill you). And once you're fighting reactive warfare, leaving anything more than a holding force on the ground is a bad idea because they will take brutal casualties if they can't contest the aerospace. Humanity seriously learned the lessons of the Pacific Theatre in WWII.
- 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 Thraddash regularly lose centuries of achievement in determining what the strongest Culture is.
- 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 Minmatar from EVEOnline, particularly the Brutor Tribe.
- 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 'honorably' 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.
- Albion has the Kenget Kamulos, an underground-living people that are one branch of the descendants of Celtic humans who mysteriously migrated to another planet long ago. Bordering on Always Lawful Evil, they live in a society entirely dedicated to their god of war, Kamulos, and go on about how warriors are superior to everyone else (especially to women and nonhumans) and, in an interesting twist, how those warriors who need weapons are inferior to those who don't (wizards).
- The Agorians in Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time are an overexaggeration of this trope.
- Canderous Ordo in Knights of the Old Republic and Mandalore himself in Knights of the Old Republic 2 are posterchildren for this trope.
- Dag'Rek from the PS 2 game Run Like Hell is a perfect example of this trope.
- The Qunari in Dragon Age: Origins are a race of people who believe that everything has its absolute, unchanging place in cosmic way of things, and theirs is to fight until the entire world embraces the philosophy of Qun. It took centuries and four Exalted Marches (read: Chrusades) from the people of Thedas to stop their relentless advance despite of the advantage of having mages on their side. The Qunari promise to do better next time.
- Jora in Guild Wars; arguably the Norn as a whole, whose culture seems to be a blend of Viking and Native American, and who really, REALLY love brawling. Possibly also Pyre Fierceshot; he and his warband seem to be an exception to the Always Chaotic Evil mentality of the Charr in general.
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 Challengesof Zona.
- Keith and the other Basitins of Two Kinds
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.
- Some of the other Predacons do have shades of this as well, but in a more Blood Knight sort of way. Also, some incarnations of the original Dinobots, when they're not portrayed as either knuckle-dragging bufoons or completely animalistic.
- Don't forget that most of the Predacons we are part of Megatron's crew. Other than that, we only see Ravage and the Tripredacus council.
- Hawkgirl from Justice League. As we see in the Christmas Episode, her idea of celebration involves starting a Bar Fight. Wonder Woman and Aquaman are borderline cases.
- Basically, Wonder Woman and Aquaman are royalty from Proud Warrior Races, while Hawkgirl is a warrior from a Proud Warrior Race.
- 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 Rajputs and Gurkhas were warrior castes, the Indian caste system of old strictly defined what jobs people of certain birth could do, and these guys were designated to the soldiers, a direct analogue with the Feudal warriors of other civilizations. The Caste System was more stable than the European style feudalism, but both systems are long gone, but the pride of belonging has not.
- On the other hand, the Nation of Shopkeepers did decide to put itself at the top of this list (like all the others)... You could question this logic.
- Yes, but could the French, Spaniards, Dutch, Germans, Italians, Argentines, etc question that logic?
- 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 Anglo-Saxons. After effectivly curbstomping the Britions, they settled into centuries of fighting anyone they could find, usually each other with wars between kingdoms occuring practically every year. Not only that, but they were obsessed with honour to the point where a warrior surviving a battle where his lord was killed was considered dishonorable in the extreme, and they were of the opinion that losing a battle wasn't shameful so long as the losing army fought with courage and didn't surrender, even when it was glaringly obvious at the start that they were going to lose. They fought the above mentioned Vikings for centuries and ultimatly won. Not particuarly suprisingly, the original Anglo-Saxon religion was basically the same as that of the Vikings, not that the eventual conversion to Christianity made a blind bit of difference.
- 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. When the Ottoman Turks took over Egypt, it was because they were using their own version of Mamluks, the Janissaries. It took Napoleon (with modern military training, a large conscript army, modern muskets, and Ottoman decadence) to finally beat them outright.
- Speaking of, the Jannissaries were Christian children converted to Islam and became the Sultan's personal guard. 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.
- Nah, we're too well-organized to be a Proud Warrior Race.
- 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.
- Uh, no. Spartans weren't stupid (despite what "300" would have you believe). They knew they were a sharp minority (their style of raising Spartiates meant that there were never more than 9,000 at any given time), so while they did have slaves, called Helots, they also had a middle-class made up of immigrants and non-Spartiates called Perioikoi. They were treated with respect and all the dignity a middle class would have been. After all, they farmed the food and made the clothes the Spartans ate and wore. The Spartans knew better than to shit on those who fed and clothed them.
- Yes, but they were given no say in any political decisions nor were allowed to interbreed with the Spartans.
- Well, they also believed that if they allowed those things, that the Spartans would be less potent warriors. They needed to protect the genes. And if they allowed the middle class into politics, that could potentially disrupt the system they had set up to produce nigh-perfect proud warrior race guys. So it's not like they didn't give them all their rights because they disrespected them.
- A very wise man once observed (probably NSFW), "only amateur fascists admire the Spartans."
- 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. Reputedly, the Romans had to literally teach them (the hard way, natch) the concept of "peace" — as in, not just until they'd recovered from the last fight.
- One tribe of Gauls did, The Celts one major cultural failing was their inability to unify which is why in the long run the Romans ate their lunch.
- 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?
- And kick Eastern Europe's ass.
- Hell, the Mongols were so terrifying the Christian world was convinced they were a punishment inflicted on them by Satan. Apparently Genghis Khan decided to confirm said idea.
- Those were Muslims, and punishment from God, not Satan. The Christians thought for longest time that the Khan himself was a Christian who would deliver them from the perceived Muslim threat. These opinions changed quickly after they had some first-hand experience of him.
- To be fair, the Sultan brought that one on himself when he executed Genghis's messengers who only wanted to trade.
- The Sultan's subjects didn't.
- Also, at the time, fighting with mounted archers was simply unfair. If you had the best mounted archers, you had total control in the field, which means the only thing that can stop you is a fortress. In other words, you can move. They can't. In modern times, the only ways to fight a roaring horde of millions of horse archers would be a horde of choppers.
- In truth, the effectiveness of mounted archers are debatable. What made the mongol horde deadly at the operational level was their horses; they were even smaller than contemporary European horses and could survive off grazing, which European horses (bread for heavy cavalry tactics and stamina) could not do. On the field, much of their work was done by feigned retreats (their horses were slower than Europe's) and hand cavalry action. Their conquests in much of Asia were handled by coming in -during- someone elses war and simply mopping up, or attacking weak and defenseless kingdoms.
- Many examples of a Proud Warrior Race got part of their reputation in uneven matches. War is not arranged like an athletic event.
- Or bombs.
- I dunno, somehow I doubt archery would work very well against tanks.
- Honor is important in American urban gang culture. This may be an answer to the "open question" in the introduction to this article.
- Most exemplified in modern culture with the Italian Mafia/Cosa Nostra, street gangs like the notorious ones in LA, not so much.
- Eh, debatable. The Mafia preached honor and loyalty to the family, the black and latino gangers to the Hood, and many a Prisoner has boasted about being a 'Righteous Con', few really give more than lipservice to any code of conduct, they are all just criminals and there really is no honor among theives.
- This troper is surprised to find this article lacks a mention of the Japanese, particularly the Samurai, whom in his view many Proud Warrior Race cultures are based upon. The main Proud Warrior Race Guy being Tokugawa who unified the country by warfare.
- This troper is still trying to figure out whether the Japanese are a perfect example of this trope or a complete aversion of it.
- It probably depends on the era. If you're talking about from the 1930s to 1945, then they would certainly count because of how militaristic they became. If you were talking about the pre-Tokugawa era, possibly. Nowadays, they're mostly an aversion, save for a minority of nationalists. But those guys are usually ignored.
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