Restrained Resistance, Reckless Rebellion

Kolivan: We need to abort the mission immediately.
Allura: Abort? No! We cannot back away now.
Antok: The Blade of Marmora does not take chances. It's how we've survived for so long.
Allura: It's held you back. Your caution is the reason Zarkon is still in power.

— Voltron: Legendary Defender

When forming La Résistance against The Empire, it's important to balance risk versus reward. If you take no risks to advance your goals, your resistance just won't accomplish anything. On the other hand, take too many risks, and your plucky band of rebels will dash themselves to pieces against the Empire's Faceless Mooks without even graduating to "thorn in the side" status.

Frequently, when multiple groups oppose the same Evil Overlord, they will come from very different points on this spectrum. Typically, the protagonists will be from a more dynamic, risk-taking group, to facilitate them routinely getting into interesting adventures, and they will usually meet an older, more established, far more risk-averse group. Despite having a common enemy, their vastly different approaches to the problem may mean they can only barely work together at best. At worst, they may be so completely at odds they can't even wait until they bring down The Empire before turning on each other to settle their differences. Related to We ARE Struggling Together. At least part of the reason for friction can be the Reckless side feeling the Restrained side are too complacent and unwilling to do anything risky, while the Restrained can view the Reckless as being, well, reckless and not thinking about the consequences of their actions.

Of course, it's also possible for the protagonists to be part of the risk-averse group (the Restrained side) and for another group to be the Reckless, in which case the Reckless group may be portrayed as being hotheads who don't think things through and instead simply keep lashing out at the Empire. Another variation is to have the protagonists be a combination of both, being dynamic enough to take action but also wise enough to know how to pick their fights. O.O.C. Is Serious Business can be invoked when either side takes up the methods of the other (e.g. the Restrained Resistance goes all in on a Death or Glory Attack or the Reckless Rebellion chooses not to carry out a high-risk operation).

Note that this doesn't necessarily have to involve an opposition to an actual Empire or Evil Overlord: it could be something as simple as workers trying to get concessions from their employer (e.g. some want to negotiate and compromise, some want to go on strike to force the employer to comply) to opposition to something systemic (e.g. the US Civil Rights movement was split between Martin Luther King's calls for peaceful demonstration versus Malcolm X's more violent methods).

Compare Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters. The Reckless Rebellion may be seen as terrorists (or may actually be terrorists), while the Restrained Resistance may be cautious because they're a bit more image-conscious. The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized is one possible outcome if the Reckless side comes out on top and are more interested in payback than actually improving things post-Empire. The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified is one of the objectives of the Restrained side, since good public relations is important to their cause. Velvet Revolution can be one of the objectives of the Restrained side (hoping to secure victory via non-violent means or at least minimized violence), in which case the Reckless side might view them as foolish idealists who don't have the stomach to do what needs to be done. Rule-Abiding Rebel and Revolutionaries Who Don't Do Anything might be used to show how ineffectual a Restrained Resistance can be, whereas Internal Reformist might be done to show how they try to affect their sought after change within whatever system they oppose. When wanting to show the Reckless side as being in the wrong, Bomb-Throwing Anarchists might be the result. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero is another common method to show that the Reckless side is in the wrong. Divide and Conquer can be invoked by the Empire itself in order to keep a resistance or opposition from actually being a threat.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Gintama has the Joui Rebels or Anti-Foreigners split into several, mostly-independent groups, such as Katsura's faction and Takasugi's Kiheitai. While they all share the common goal of opposing the Shogunate and the Tendoshu and eliminating Amanto influence on Earth, they tend to differ in the execution.
  • Katsura, for instance, becomes a lot more restrained after he meets with Gintoki and sees that he's moved on from the Joui War and made peace with what the world has become, leading to his faction becoming more moderate and wishing to change the government so that the people feel safe while peacefully coexisting with the Amanto.
  • Takasugi, on the other hand, is far more violent in the pursuit of his goals, and the Kiheitai are one of the more extremist factions among the Joui Rebels, willing to form alliances with the Harusame and the Hitotsubashi faction for the sake of, in Takasugi's own words, "destroy everything".

Comic Books

• In Captain America: Sam Wilson, the Bombshells were introduced to the series as a demonstration of the "wrong" way to go about protesting injustice through civil disobedience and violence, whereas Sam Wilson's work as Captain America was supposed to be seen as the "right" way. This led to a heap of Unfortunate Implications, as Wilson was portrayed as a black man who answered to white authority figures, whereas the protesters were mostly people of color who were independent of any government authority.
• Star Wars:
  • Star Wars (Marvel 2015) demonstrates how an organisation can swing from Restrained to Reckless and back again depending on the situation. Shortly after the destruction of the Death Star, the Rebel Alliance launches an all-out assault on the Empire, believing that the loss of the Death Star and personnel leaves the Empire vulnerable. This is a big change from their previous Restrained stance, which revolved around keeping underneath the Empire's radar as much as possible. However, since the series is set between Star Wars: A New Hope and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, the Rebels are destined to lose. Sure enough, despite initial success the Rebel advance is blunted and then rolled back when the Empire dispatches the elite fleets and troops of the Core Worlds, which are significantly better trained and led than the troops the Rebels were used to fighting. Because of the losses suffered, the Alliance goes back to their Restrained stance to rebuild.
  • Invoked in one of the arc of Darth Vader, where the Empire deliberately arranges for the Rebellion to gather the majority of their forces in one location by having one of their vassals offer a small fleet of warships. While normally the Rebel Alliance avoids concentrating their forces, the offer of warships is so enticing that the Reckless voices in the Alliance leadership win out with even the more Restrained members agreeing that it was worth the risk. It wasn't. It really wasn't. ^note  The arc was inspired by one of the writers wondering why a farmboy like Luke Skywalker and a smuggler like Han Solo are high-ranking commanders by the time of Empire Strikes Back, and using the story to kill off several high-ranking Rebel leaders so Luke and co are promoted to replace them.
• X-Men: Both the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants recognise that baseline humans will try to control or outright destroy mutants once they realise they exist. But where the X-Men are the Restrained and try to show that mutants aren't something to be feared or exterminated on sight, the Brotherhood are the Reckless and intend to cow humanity into submission.

Film — Live-Action

• Discussed in Gandhi between the different factions of the Indian independence movement, with some committing violent acts while others insist on seeking independence entirely through legal means. Gandhi chooses to Take a Third Option, using non-violent mass action of an economic nature such as making salt from the sea (in order to avoid paying a salt tax) or boycotting British-made textiles.
• In Reds!, there are divisions among the Leftists, both in America and in Russia, between the gradualists and the outright revolutionaries.
• Star Wars:
  • Ancillary material in both the old Legends continuity and the current Disney canon show that the Rebel Alliance is an example of the Restrained Resistance, an alliance of various groups that recognised there was no way for them to oppose the Empire on their own and that direct confrontation wouldn't be possible due to the vast difference in resources. Other, more reckless groups sometimes feature (e.g. in the Tarkin novel), but they're normally destroyed once the Empire brings its full might to bear against them ^note  This is why in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back the Rebels scatter following the Empire's attack on their base on Hoth: the only way they can survive (and have survived) is to scatter and avoid gathering their forces in one place until it's time for an attack . The Rebellion is actually viewed as the Reckless in-universe by the larger galaxy, especially the Internal Reformist senators who oppose the Empire via the Senate and think that armed resistance is futile. It doesn't end well for the senators.
  • This is a point of contention in Rogue One with three different factions arguing and the Rebel leadership having to try and balance all three parts. The film shows that none of the three factions are entirely wrong, nor entirely right.
    • Saw Gerrera and his supporters are extremely aggressive and violent in their resistance, and that turned off a lot of even relatively active resistors because he was seen as reckless, heedless of casualties (his own, the enemy's, or noncombatants), and thus little better than the Empire itself. There was a justified fear that if the Alliance went all in on his methods, it would have fallen apart.
    • Then the moderates themselves are seen as too risk-averse, such as declining to authorise a raid on Scarif since it involves risking all their resources being destroyed, or bringing the wrath of the Empire down on their worlds.
    • The final faction is the loosely engaged malcontents, who are happy to talk about how bad the Empire are without actually doing anything about it, if they even care at all. Main character Jyn Erso fell under this category until the events of the film convinced her to take an active stand.
  • The Last Jedi: Admiral Holdo orders her Resistance fleet to remain calm and stay at their stations, seemingly not doing anything about the First Order ships chasing them and their dwindling fuel reserves meaning it's only a matter of time before they're destroyed. Not down with this, Poe hatches a daring secret plan that will let them escape the First Order's hyperspace tracking, and as that is taking too long, finally mutinies against Holdo to attempt something to save what's left of the Resistance. It's then revealed that Holdo did have a plan (prepared in advance by General Leia) and Poe's attempt actually results in several shuttles filled with Resistance members being shot down with all hands. In an example of Poor Communication Kills, once he's actually told the plan he agrees with it: the problem was that, even when outright asked if there was a plan, Holdo refused to say anything, leading him (and a good chunk of the crew) to believe she had no idea what she was doing.
• In The Wind That Shakes the Barley the Irish revolution is divided into two warring factions, one that wants to compromise with the British and one that wants to continue the struggle.
  • Same with Michael Collins, also about the Irish Rebellion. Both films are (roughly) based on true events.
• In the X-Men Film Series, much like the comic books, the humans fear that mutants will use their powers to subjugate them and either want to control or even outright exterminate them. Charles Xavier and the X-Men team want to show everyone that humans and mutants can peacefully live together, but trust has to be earned on both sides. Magneto and the Brotherhood of Mutants, however, are willing to do what is necessary to at the very least have the human governments leave them alone, although they clearly see themselves as the superior beings that deserve to rule the world.

Literature

• Animorphs:
  • One of the problems faced by the team is that they can't declare the existence of Yeerks to the world at large because the Yeerks are currently forced to use slow and silent infiltration tactics, and revealing their existence would mean they would then unleash their massive firepower and spaceships, which the cast can't do anything against ^note their morphing abilities were actually developed for espionage purposes, and in a direct fight there's no animal on Earth that can stand against Yeerk military-grade weaponry, and Earth's armies would have difficulty as well (once the Yeerks actually do go public, it takes the betrayal of Visser Three's Number Two and the intervention of the Andalite fleet to defeat them). So they have to settle for countering the Yeerk's plans whenever they hear about them, and the apparent lack of progress takes its toll on them as the series goes on.
  • Rachel repeatedly advocates more public moves against the Yeerks in the hopes that they'll commit mistakes and possibly get other people to know about them. One book has Jake called away on a family trip and Rachel decides to take over for him, multiplying public attacks on Yeerk-controlled businesses in order to make Visser Three look like an idiot in front of the Yeerk inspector wondering why progress on Earth's invasion is so slow. In the end, her leadership nearly ends in catastrophe, and they agree it's better to leave Visser Three in charge (thanks to his Bad Boss tendencies, Never My Fault attitude and Miles Gloriosus personality, he kills about as many Yeerks as they do, if not more).
• At the beginning of The Salvation War, a few soldiers who got into Hell escape their bonds, and meet a woman who claims to be part of the human resistance. However, it soon becomes apparent that the "resistance" is no more than a bunch of people hiding from the demons in every hole and occasionally liberating someone. The woman is terrified when she realizes the newcomers are actually drawing attention by killing demons.
• Star Wars Legends: The Rebel Alliance was all over the place with this. While the protagonists of the films were firmly on the "risky" side, expanded materials showed many different Rebel cells, ranging from the ones so cautious they might as well not have existed at all, to ones so reckless the Empire just had to shoot them when they showed up. By the time of The Thrawn Trilogy, the Rebel Alliance has become the New Republic, and is growing steadily more risk-averse and bound by bureaucratic inertia and political infighting (something Thrawn takes merciless advantage of). When the New Republic tries to fool Thrawn into thinking they're falling for his trap at Tangrene, while actually intending to hit the heavily-defended Bilbringi shipyards, Thrawn actually applauds it as a return to the bold strategies that allowed the Rebellion to defeat the Empire in the first place. By the time of the New Jedi Order, the New Republic has grown so bureaucratically and politically deadlocked that entire fleets are kept back to protect valuable Core worlds, in absolutely no danger of Yuuzhan Vong invasion, while Outer and Mid Rim worlds drop like nine pins. Finally, General Wedge Antilles has had enough, and forms a resistance to the Yuuzhan Vong within the crumbling New Republic military and government, using any tactics and strategies that will earn victory. This includes the stand-up straight-fight doctrines of the New Republic, the asymmetric warfare strategies from the Rebellion, and even a dash of There's No Kill like Overkill from the Empire.

Live-Action TV

• Andor:
  • Luthen's work is actually to invoke the second part: to get some big, dramatic, damaging attacks against the Empire going, knowing that the Empire will respond by bringing the boot down even harder, which will wake more people up to the dangers of Imperial rule and convince them that the Empire must be resisted, and they have to band together and strike back. It's an interesting ploy, and he does have a point, but his gung-ho (and general use of patsies to do the dangerous work for him), shocks and horrifies the more Restrained Mon Mothma, who isn't yet reconciled to the inevitability of mass suffering and loss of life throughout the galaxy in order to resist the Empire.
  • Meanwhile some of the proto-Rebel cells, such as the Partisans led by Saw Gerrera, make even Luthen and members of his cell uncomfortable. Luthen admits that Saw is such a cutthroat Wild Card that Luthen has no idea what Saw will do with information or equipment Luthen gives him, which leaves Luthen trying to be the voice of reason and moderation to Saw.
• Babylon 5: The dynamic between the Mars Resistance and the Army of Light in the first half of season 4. The Resistance is full of hot-heads who don't seem to care what the result is as long as they get a chance to spill some Earther blood. The Army of Light, under Captain Sheridan takes a slower approach, laying the groundwork of a proper rebellion, courting allies and launching a counter-propaganda war. This gets turned on its head after President Clark orders refugee ships destroyed and Sheridan pulls the trigger on an all-out shooting war, utilizing tactics that have even the Resistance having second thoughts.
• In Colony, the Bowman family becomes split about how to fight back against the aliens who have taken over their neighborhood. Will Bowman thinks that by working with the occupying government, he can find sympathetic people to help overthrow the "Hosts" from within, while his wife Katie joins La Résistance and gets involved in increasingly dangerous acts of rebellion.
• This is the theme of the Doctor Who story "The Krotons", which deconstructs many tropes associated with Occupiers Out of Our Country and especially The Quisling. The Doctor and friends arrive on a planet where a small group of aliens in a crashed spaceship have duped the local sentients into believing that they are benevolent, while actually using them for Human Resources. When the local leader is alerted to this by the Doctor, his reluctance to fight the aliens is depicted as entirely sensible given their technological superiority. By contrast, his political rival who wants to attack the aliens immediately is depicted as an irresponsible power-hungry villain who will get everyone killed.
• Explored in the Legends of Tomorrow "A Woman's Place is in the War Effort!", where the team ends up in a WWII-era factory and Astra (who is a modern black woman) gets so frustrated by the racism and sexism in the management that she takes over the factory and decrees that the factory will now become integrated, causing most of the white employees to quit in protest. This ends up getting her backlash from the black employees, many of whom had been keeping their heads down and hoping that loyal service to the war efforts would lead to more rights and recognition after the war, and who now fear that Astra's actions will cause the factory to miss its deadline and get shut down, which would result in them all losing their jobs and status. Thankfully, the Legends manage to figure out work-arounds to the staffing shortage, enabling the factory to meet its deadline, and as luck would have it, Eleanor Roosevelt shows up and is so impressed with the factory's efficiency that she declares that she will have all factories integrated by the end of the year. ^note The show doesn't explore what will happen at those other factories where the Legends aren't there to pick up the slack.
• Stargate SG-1: Three main groups oppose the evil Goa'uld System Lords:
  • Stargate Command is the more dynamic, risk-taking rebellion. However, the SGC is run by the United States Air Force, with a clear chain of command all the way up to the President (who Hammond literally has a direct line to). Problems are discussed and analyzed in order to chose the best (or least bad) option available. The Tau'ri just seem like careless hooligans to the rest of the galaxy, kacking off System Lords left and right (frequently by accident), and freely admitting they have no idea what they're doing. The SGC's standing orders are to acquire weapons and technology capable of defending Earth from the Goa'uld, they have no actual plan or intent to take down the System Lords.
    • The SGC is the Restrained to the Rogue NID's Reckless. While both organizations have the same basic standing orders — retrieve weapons and technology that can defend Earth from the Goa'uld — the SGC prioritizes, at the very least, not making more enemies in the process, and if we can make some allies, great. The Rogue NID will obtain technology by any means necessary, including stealing it from Earth's ostensible allies, threatening those alliances. Ultimately, the SGC's method proves superior, as alliances with the Tok'ra, Free Jaffa, and especially Asgard paved the way for the Tau'ri to become the next galactic superpower.
  • The Tok'ra are the quintessential cautious resistance. For thousands of years, they've operated as spies and saboteurs within the Goa'uld ranks, and their main accomplishment is to play the various System Lords against each other, never letting one become too dominant. Their stance is justified, as the Tok'ra have no means of reproducing, which means that every Tok'ra operative who dies is one less Tok'ra in existence, permanently. A major bone of contention between the SGC and the Tok'ra is that the SGC sometimes feels like the Tok'ra view them as convenient bodies to throw at more dangerous operations without risking Tok'ra lives.
  • The Jaffa rebels start off even worse than the Tok'ra. While they believe the Goa'uld are false gods who enslave and destroy Jaffa merely to sate their own egos, the Jaffa also believe the Goa'uld are far too powerful to ever be overthrown. Bra'tac mentors Teal'c in how to curb Goa'uld cruelty and excess, stating that the best they can hope for is to spare a few lives here and there. Teal'c dreams of freeing all Jaffa from Goa'uld oppression, a dream which Bra'tac outright states will probably get him killed someday.
• This is the conflict between Barry Al-Fayed and Ihab Rashid at the start of Tyrant (2014). They both want to overthrow Barry's dictator brother Jamal, but Barry seeks to do it through proper channels, convincing the military and judiciary that Jamal is unfit for office, whereas Ihab wants to do away with the government altogether, and isn't afraid to resort to terrorism in order to accomplish it.

Theatre

• Hamilton: While Alexander Hamilton and his associates are all for going out and kicking British ass, Aaron Burr advocates a slower, calmer, more thought-out approach, something the other revolutionaries want nothing to do with. This is representative of Burr's character throughout the play.

Video Games

• The Lokapala in Digital Devil Saga 2 are a resistance movement that fights against the humanitarian Karma Society. However, after the death of their previous leader Greg, the new leader Roland fell to a downwards spiral of depression and alcoholism, thus becoming overly paranoid and making more defensive plans and sending in infiltrators than actually taking action. It doesn't help that the Karma Society has demons in its ranks.
• Final Fantasy VII Remake: It's revealed that Barret merely leads an independent cell of a larger AVALANCHE organisation. They don't get along, as the organisation is concerned with slowly building up the resources needed to oppose SHINRA directly, while Barret's cell makes big elaborate shows of defiance (including the attack on the Mako generator at the start of the game). The fact that SHINRA is able to spin Barret's cell's attacks as the whole AVALANCHE organisation being terrorists is an understandable bone of contention.
• Fire Emblem: Three Houses: Edelgard and Claude, the leaders of two of the eponymous Houses, are both ideologically opposed to The Church of Seiros and to its hegemony over the states of Fodlan. However, whereas Edelgard declares open war on the Church and its allies upon becoming Emperor, demolishing the old world order by military force (in her own route), Claude is much more cautious, preferring ideological subversion and a gradual replacement of the Church hierarchy with less dogmatic figures, with the end goal of integrating Fodlan with the rest of the world via trade and cultural exchange.
• Mega Man Zero: Prior to the game's start, the Resistance are simply meant to be a refuge for the oppressed Reploids who are fleeing from the iron-fisted rule of Neo Arcadia. They're constantly assaulted and they only fight in self-defense. Their leader, the human scientist Ciel, has to find the "legendary hero" Zero to help her group, and from then on they're able to fight back more successfully, ending with Zero slaying Neo Arcadia's ruler, Copy X. Then in the second game the group grows larger after a 1-year Time Skip and Ciel retired from the leading duty to focus on her researches, while the leader position is filled by the new character Elpizo; under him, the Resistance are more willing to do riskier attacks on Neo Arcadia (it still stands because their leader's death is not made public), culminating in a large scale invasion force; sadly, it utterly fails, with Elpizo's army getting slain and he himself at the mercy of Neo Arcadia's generals before Zero rescues him. In the third game onward they go back to being cautious.
• Persona 5: The Phantom Thieves represent the Reckless side, rebelling against the corrupt adults in power by using their ability to Traverse Mementos to outright steal the distorted desires of authority figures. Goro Akechi is the Caution side, and is the bastard son of Shido, whom he holds a grudge against. Unfortunately, he was a just foster kid vs a politician, so when Akechi gained access to Mementos he became Shido's hitman to slowly gain his trust, with the intent to reveal everything to the public and kill Shido when he reached the height of his power. He fails and the Thieves take Shido's heart, instead.
• Terra Invicta has the Academy, Resistance, and Humanity First factions, all of whom want to fight the Alien Invasion in the short term but have different methods and long-term goals:
  • The Academy is the most restrained resistance. They start out hoping for peaceful cooperation with the alien newcomers, but quickly realize the aliens have other ideas and reluctantly go to war to prevent them from enslaving Earth. Even so, they do their best to avoid more bloodshed then necessary, and their long-term goal is to find a pro-peace faction among the aliens to negotiate with after doing enough damage to prove humanity is worthy of respect.
  • The Resistance are a somewhat less restrained resistance, but still concerned first with protecting human life. Fighting the aliens and eventually closing the wormhole they're using to reach Earth is their only goal, with everything else they do being a means to that end. Their victory condition is notably unaffected by the political situation on Earth, beyond requiring that the aliens not directly control any territory. Even if pro-alien factions are popular, as long as they don't have the space-faring firepower needed to actually stop the Resistance achieving their goals, they can be left alone.
  • Humanity First are the reckless rebellion, focused on destroying the aliens and their collaborators, by any means necessary. Unlike the Resistance, they have to manage the political situation on Earth to win. Actively arresting and purging members of pro-alien factions in any positions of power is a central part of their game plan. They also have a different victory condition than the Resistance: rather than just close the wormhole, they use it to deliver a bioweapon with genocidal intent.
• By the time of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, it's clear that the Autobots have lost the war, with the game revolving around their preparations to flee the planet aboard their gigantic starship the Ark. Optimus Prime represents the Restrained side of this trope, intending to leave their dying planet of Cybertron behind so as to muster their forces elsewhere while also giving the planet time to heal ^note  in the previous game the planet's living core was poisoned by the Decepticons. This means the planet cannot sustain life until the poison is purged, a process expected to take several thousand years . Grimlock meanwhile represents the Reckless side, even outright calling Optimus a coward for running when he should fight despite Optimus pointing out there's nothing left to fight for. He likewise ignores that him leading his team into abandoning their post without telling anyone leaves a hole in the Autobot defense line, which leads to the devastating attack in the first chapter.
• Wolfenstein: The New Order: The Kreisau Circle have been reduced to Restrained Resistance by 1961, as General Deathshead's technology have allowed the Nazi regime to smash any overt resistance. As a result, the remnants of the Circle, led by a paralyzed Caroline Becker, have been forced to restrain their activities to the point that their headquarters are right in the middle of Berlin with no one the wiser, and any action they're able to take being chalked up to lone radicals or "subversives". Once B.J Blazkowicz wakes from his coma and finds them, his One-Man Army skills allow them to switch to Reckless Rebellion, performing several extremely daring operations, including shutting down a major death camp, freeing prisoners, stealing priceless resources and hardware, assassinating high-ranked Nazi officials, destroying infrastructure, and infiltrating and sabotaging important facilities... with the result being that the regime puts their full attention on destroying the Resistance and making Blazkowicz public enemy number 1, leading to the loss of their original headquarters and the deaths of many of the resistance members, including Caroline in the sequel.

Western Animation

• In Exo Squad, the Exofleet initially opts to observe and conserve their strength while seeking out an opportunity to strike back at the Neo Sapiens. When the vice-admiral launches a mutiny out of belief that the admiral isn't doing enough to liberate Earth and the other occupied worlds, they become the Reckless side. Meanwhile, the pirate fleets carry out limited attacks against the Neo Sapien forces, acting as the Restrained side. Exofleet is devastated after a failed assault, forcing the remnants (back under the command of the admiral) to form an Enemy Mine with the pirate fleets.
• This is the conflict between Glimmer and her mother Queen Angella in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Glimmer is an excitable young rebel who often jumps into the fray herself, and Queen Angella is an older, more cautious rebel because she led the campaign in which she believed her husband died.
• Star Wars Rebels: The Ghost crew zigzag this trope. At first, they're the Reckless, striking at the Empire wherever and whenever they can, and aren't too impressed with the larger Rebellion due to their impression the Rebellion is all talk. Once they actually prove to be a nuisance, Darth Vader arrives and in the space of a single episode completely undoes all of their victories while chasing them off-world, demonstrating just how powerless they really are. After joining with the Rebel Alliance, they're more restrained (especially compared to Saw Guerrera's Partisans), since they now know the importance of picking their fights.
  • The season 3 episode "Iron Squadron" demonstrates how well they've learned this lesson. The titular Iron Squadron (a trio of youths aboard a modified freighter) insist on "defending" their world against the Empire despite the Ghost crew's attempts to convince them to withdraw with other retreating Rebel sympathizers. Protagonist Ezra (who was very much the Reckless earlier in the series) appeals to them that retreating from a hopeless fight isn't cowardice. The Iron Squadron see his point when they are attacked by an Imperial warship, and are informed that what they're fighting is most assuredly not a Star Destroyer... and that actual Star Destroyers are 6 times larger than the ship they're facing.
• Voltron: Legendary Defender: The Paladins of Voltron pretty much operate on a very simple level. Step One: See Galra. Step Two: Form Voltron. Step Three: Apply Blue Lion To Enemy Posterior At High Velocity. Meanwhile, the Galra resistance, The Blade of Marmora, are working quietly and behind the scenes, gathering information and intelligence, so good at staying hidden we only get a hint to their existence in the final episode of the first season. When something goes wrong with The Plan, the Blades' first reaction is to abort immediately, because they do not take risks. The Paladins' reaction... well, they rarely even have a plan to begin with, and just keep reacting until they find a way to win. They learn their lesson when their "tactics" lead to the defeat of Emperor Zarkon... at the apparent cost of their leader Shiro. They spend part of the following season asking Was It Really Worth It?, because not only does the Galra Empire not immediately collapse after Zarkon's apparent death, but now they don't have a way to form Voltron anymore.