Ambitions can vary. Some want to Take Over the World, gain eternal life, or obtain goodhood. But some want physical power... for the sake of power. When the ultimate strength is not a means to the end, but is the end.
As the natural progression of an Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy or Proud Warrior Race Guy, becoming the World's Strongest Man is a common motivation of characters in a World of Badass. Typically is not a good thing, as lust for power is known to be corrupting. Depending on personal honor, the character may or may not also seek an Artifact of Doom or Black Magic to grow even stronger.
Their reasoning can be that either they'd be free to do whatever they want or they'll avoid loss they've once experienced. What happens after they get strong enough is not something they're concerned with. They don't have a concrete end goal, aside from satisfying their own Pride of knowing nobody can kick their ass, though there may be some hidden motives. May eventually end up with being targeted by everyone, loneliness, boredom, or meltdown from accumulated power.
Closely related to a desire for authority, but this is more about personal strength, physical or magical.
Compare:
- Ambition Is Evil: Striving for more than you have at the expense of others.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Strength puts you in a position of authority.
- Blood Knight: Someone who loves the act of fighting.
- Challenge Seeker: Someone who loves overcoming difficulties.
- My Kung-Fu Is Stronger Than Yours: Training to become stronger than another fighter.
- Thrill Seeker: Someone who loves danger.
- To Be a Master: Someone who aims for the most respected title in the setting.
- Strength Equals Worthiness: Earning someone's respect through the challenge of combat.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Afro Samurai: In the setting, possessing the Number One Headband is considered to be one of the greatest things one could ever accomplish, but it can only be obtained by the owner Number Two Headband challenging the current wielder of Number One in the duel to the death. Nobody actually knows what the Headband grants, and their wielders aren't known to do much afterward aside waiting for the next challenger.
- AKIRA: Tetsuo Shima begins as an arrogant member of a biker gang, whose sense of self-importance skyrockets after he gains powerful psychic abilities. Despite becoming effectively the king of the ruined Tokyo, he is still obsessed with power due to personal insecurities.
- Astro Boy: The iconic "The Strongest Robot in the World" arc focuses on a robot named Pluto that wishes to prove himself as the strongest by killing the other 7 robots in the world. He temporarily succeeds in doing so, only to struggle against a revived Astro before suffering a Mutual Kill against a secret super robot named Bora. Unlike most examples of this trope, Pluto has no genuine desire to be the strongest robot on Earth or to kill other sentient machines, with his selfish master forcing him to prove his strength.
- Bleach: Aizen, despite being the strongest shinigami, wants to step on the highest evolutionary level.
- In Digimon Tamers, Impmon, who was shaped by the Digital World's 'Survival of the fittest' life and his own troubled past with humans, wanted to prove he could be the strongest without the need of a partner. After a brutal Break the Haughty experience against Indramon, he made a deal with Catsuramon to gain the ability to digivolve in exchange for destroying the Tamers, leading him to become Beelzemon. Finally gaining the power he always desired caused him to experience a Power High, become intoxicated by it and desiring more, leading him down a destructive path as he sought to load as much data as he could, culminating with him killing Jeri's partner Leomon. Upon being defeated by Gallantmon, he snapped out of it and realized just how much damage his thirst for power had caused.
- Dragon Ball:
- Vegeta is the ruthless and arrogant prince of the Saiyan race, who enjoys crushing his enemies to prove his superiority. Formally a member of the Frieza Force, he joins Goku's side so he could eventually prove himself stronger.
- Dragon Ball Super: It is not enough for Goku Black to destroy humanity and turn Earth into his private garden. He wants to be the strongest warrior he can be, battling Goku several times to increase his power and even turning down a chance at immortality, reasoning that he would be too dependent on it.
- Food Wars!: Asahi is a prideful chef with an ability "Cross Knives", which he uses to assimilate cooking abilities of other chefs by collecting their knives, seeking more, so he would never lose to anyone in duels.
- Getter Robo: The true nature of Getter Rays is revealed to be a Sentient Cosmic Force, manifesting as Getter Emperor in the Bad Future, turning into a serial Planet Eater who is motivated by its growth and further evolution while assisting its race of preference, than by any malice.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency: Kars is the leader of Pillar Men, ancient supervampires, as well as the creator of the Stone Mask. Despite being confident in his superiority, he seeks Red Stone of Aja to reach further evolution and become the Ultimate Thing for the sake of remaining "at the top".
- One Piece: The long-term dream of Roronoa Zoro is to become known as the world's greatest swordsman, taking the title from the current holder, Dracule Mihawk.
- One-Punch Man: Garou, the Hero Hunter, is the former disciple of Bang, and a self-proclaimed Human Monster. Frustrated by the common belief that The Good Guys Always Win, he learns different fighting styles and seeks out superheroes to try them on, growing more experienced over time, with the sole stated purpose of showing that not even S-Rank heroes are invincible. Which in the end is revealed to be a Genghis Gambit.
- Shin Mazinger Zero: The titular mecha is eventually revealed to be a sentient Mechanical Abomination that desperately and violently seeks to be the strongest robot in the world by destroying anything that attempts to challenge or surpass it, be it good or evil. This inevitably results in Shin Mazinger Zero awakening and causing the end of the world, forcing Minerva X to reset the timeline to the moment that Mazinger Z would be activated for the first time. By the 2799th cycle, even when everything goes (relatively) right and Mazinger Z defeats Dr. Hell, the appearance of Great Mazinger causes the mech to throw a hissy fit at the very concept of a Superior Successor and once again destroy the universe. He eventually breaks out to other franchises to become the sole Mecha ever.
Comic Books
- In Final Crisis Aftermath: Run!, the Human Flame wakes up from a coma to discover that nearly every superhero on the planet wants his head for murdering Martian Manhunter. Consequently, he spends the entire miniseries seeking increasingly drastic measures to make himself more powerful so that he can fight all the heroes who are sure to be coming for him.
Fan Works
- The Dark Lords Ascendant: Tanizaki Kazuo is a Corrupt Corporate Executive who uses his wealth and other resources to track down and collect items of power so he can have them analyzed to find a way to use their power himself. His ultimate goal is to find a way to seize control of the Silver Crystal from Sailor Moon, which will leave him as the undisputedly most powerful being on Earth.
Films — Animation
- Aladdin: Jafar, in both the animated and live-action films, is obsessed with gaining power for himself, and this obsession proves to be his Fatal Flaw. Despite already being in a position of authority as the vizier to the Sultan of Agrabah, he schemes to get his hands on the Genie's lamp and wishes to become Sultan himself. But when that isn't enough, Jafar takes the next step and wishes to be the most powerful sorcerer in the world. And even then, when Aladdin deliberately bruises his ego by pointing out that the Genie is the one who made him so powerful in the first place, and could just as easily take his power away, Jafar decides to surpass even that and wish to become an all-powerful genie- only to discover that for all his god-like power, now he's a prisoner and slave to whoever holds his lamp.
- Kung Fu Panda: Tai Lung was Master Shifu's previous apprentice trained to be the Dragon Warrior, until his arrogance got the better of him. When his training was canceled, he went on a rampage and had to be imprisoned. In the present, he escapes the Chorh-Gom Prison and aims again for the Dragon Scroll, believing it can teach him "limitless power", but is stopped by Po after learning that the scroll is just a symbolic mirror.
Films — Live-Action
- Fantastic Four (2005): Victor Von Doom states that he has always wanted power and after being mutated by the same cosmic storm that affected the heroes, states he has it in "unlimited supply".
- The One: The Big Bad of the story, Yulaw, has the objective of killing every single alternate version of himself in the Multiverse to gather all of the universal power spread throughout them into himself and become "the one". Nobody actually knows what the heck will actually happen if he succeeds, but the fear that it will cause severe damage to the Multiverse at the least is enough for the heroes to try to do anything to prevent it from happening.
Literature
- All You Need Is Kill: Keiji Kiriya is a New Meat who quickly dies fighting an Alien Invasion, but is revived as Groundhog Peggy Sue, a trait which he uses to eventually become a One-Man Army to survive at least his first day.
- A Certain Magical Index: Accelerator is considered the 1st ranked Level 5 Esper, and he participates in the Level 6 Shift project in order to become the first Level 6 Esper, a state theorized to transcend humanity and be closer to God. The reason Accelerator participates in the project is that due to his ranking and his Attack Reflector ability, he is constantly being challenged by other Espers seeking to be the first one to defeat him or take his place as most strongest Esper in Academy City. As a result, he seeks to be a Level 6 so that everyone else would be too scared to fight him, meaning he would no longer need to fight anymore. After Touma defeats him to stop him from killing the Misaka Sisters for training, he has lost this ambition.
- Immortal Guardians: The Immortals' most common reason for conflicting with humans are military factions who want access to the virus that can create Super Soldiers and mega capitalists who want the virus to create anti-aging serums to extend the lives of multibillionaires.
- The Light Fantastic: Ymper Trymon is a 7th-level wizard of Unseen University who eventually climbs up to the rank of Archchancellor through a series of literally filling dead predecessor's pointy shoes (which was actually legal at the time). However, he got even more unfettered after learning about Tome of Eldritch Lore Octavo, and tried to obtain the "greatest concentration of magic on the Disc" for himself. It's not clear what plans he had aside from learning spells nobody before him ever had.
- Old Kingdom: Free Magic sorcerers inevitably get addicted to the experience of forcing magic and other creatures to obey their will. Best exemplified by Kerrigor, who, not content with being Crown Prince, mastered Free Magic, transformed himself into an Undead Abomination, made human sacrifices of his family, and tried to tear apart the Kingdom so he could rule over a Necrocracy of his thralls.
- Solo Leveling: Sung Jin-woo, who had a reputation of being the "World's Weakest Hunter", dies and is reborn in the Double Dungeon, gaining Sudden Game Interface. In relative secrecy of others, he takes every quest the system offers, so he can neutralize any Dungeon that appears, quickly becoming the strongest Hunter in the world and still going.
Live-Action TV
- In Juken Sentai Gekiranger, Rio, after losing his family to a terrible monster as a child, resolved to become as strong as he could so he'd never feel weak and helpless again, a path that was shaped by other events that lead him to become the leader of the Concentration Fist school before joining forces with the immortal dragon Long for even more power. It's ultimately revealed that Long was the very creature that slaughtered his family as a child and manipulated him throughout his life in order to turn him into the Destroyer. Finding out that his desire to become strong had been deliberately planted into him left Rio broken.
- Kamen Rider Gaim: Kaito Kumon, aka Kamen Rider Baron, is obsessed with "survival of the fittest", which he sees as the most important thing in life after his father's company got taken down by Yggdrasill Corporation. He believes life is as valuable as one's ambition to get stronger, which ironically maintains his moral connection with other Beat Riders. He views strength not as a right for oppression, but as a symbol to strive for, eventually trying to become the Adam of the new world by becoming the Overlord.
- Kamen Rider Saber: Ren Akamichi is the immature upstart among the seasoned warriors that make up the Sword Of Logos. Compared to his fellow Riders (who want to protect people), Ren is a Blood Knight only focused on gaining power; being unconcerned with civilians caught in the crossfire of his clashes and his single-minded pettiness towards Touma during the latter's Frame-Up preventing him from being savvy to Issac and Reika's manipulation. He spends all of the show's second act picking fights while being egged on by the pseudo-Megid Desast, who enables his Blood Knight tendencies. This causes him no end of grief and loss as everyone else's priorities go beyond power grabs while he socially stagnates; Kento (the man Ren looked up to like a big brother) even sealing his Seiken during his own single-minded crusade to prevent a Bad Future. He does eventually get better.
- Teen Wolf: Several characters are heavily focused on gaining as much power as quickly as possible.
- Peter Hale murders his niece in order to steal her Alpha spark, then begins biting teenagers in an attempt to gain the power boost of having multiple betas. His ultimate goal is to be strong enough to take on the family of hunters who killed his pack.
- Gerard Argent schemes not only to be turned into a werewolf but also plans to then immediately kill Derek, so that he'll be the Alpha in control of the Beacon Hills territory. He would then be the ultimate hunter, strong as a supernatural creature with the skill of a trained soldier.
- Jennifer Blake attempts a complicated three-fold, five-fold, seven-fold human sacrifice spell in an attempt to control the Nemeton, a power well with enough magic to take on the immensely powerful Alpha pack. Her black magic rituals that result in nearly fifteen murders changes her from a peaceful druid to a dreaded darach.
- The Alpha pack goes around convincing werewolves to slaughter their whole pack. When a werewolf slaughters an Alpha they become the Alpha, an immense power-up. If they then kill all the pack betas, they gain the power of those betas. The Alphas then become a pack, strengthening each other through pack bonds. Deucalion, the Alpha of Alphas, also kills Ennis, a member of the Alpha pack, granting him all of Ennis' stored power. The average Alpha would struggle against a member of the Alpha pack. The average beta doesn't stand a chance.
- Thunderbolt Fantasy: Mie Tian Hai is the Evil Overlord and a necromancer of Xuan Gui Zong sect. He is already an acknowledged Master Swordsman, but he seeks the divine Heaven's Retribution Sword, Tian Xing Jian, out of a simple desire to aim higher and the narcissism of possessing the most powerful sword. When Lin Xue Ya proves himself to be a more talented swordsman, Mie Tian Hai commits Spiteful Suicide and releases Sealed Evil in a Can just to avoid humiliation.
Video Games
- Devil May Cry: Vergil, the twin brother of Dante, has an unhealthy obsession with getting more power. Unlike Dante, who is more easy-going in life, Vergil is affected by the loss of their mother, going to questionable means to become unstoppable, such as following Arkham to obtain Force Edge for himself, and splitting himself in two and becoming V and demon lord Urizen. He is notably chivalrous and often lets Dante recover to fight him on equal ground.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks: Byrne has always been a formidable Magic Knight, but he betrayed the Lokomo tribe so that he could free Malladus in exchange for the power he craved. He ends up losing to Link and Zelda despite his best efforts and realizes too late that Malladus was never going to honor his end of the bargain.
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: The Demon King Ganondorf cares about gaining power and nothing else. His ultimate dream is to be the most powerful being in existence, and is more than willing to make others suffer for it. Ganondorf will always try to seek out opponents and enjoys the thrill of victory, often sapping them away from their strength to make his own. When he is done, Ganondorf wants to plunge the world into darkness simply so that everyone knows who the strongest in all of Hyrule really is. Ganondorf is so powerful, in fact, that a lot of it had to be expelled from his body. This is what ultimately created Malice, Gloom, and even Calamity Ganon.
- Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name: Kiyoshi Ugajin is the leader of The Castle's Four Kings of the Coliseum. When Kazuma Kiryu disturbs The Castle's hierarchy, instead of getting offended like the other fighters, he offers Kiryu to challenge him to get the answer he wants. The side-quest shows his journey to become the strongest underground fighter ever, disinterested in Kijin Clan's politics, and testing incorporating Mizorogi's gadgets with his fighting style.
- Shin Megami Tensei: The Chaos alignment in all games can be summarized as Might Makes Right. The motives of faction leaders typically involve To Create a Playground for Evil, but Chaos-aligned heroes (Dahn, Jimenez, Walter, Nikaido, Keita) seek to become ever stronger specifically so they would never feel oppression or threat.
- Warcraft: At the end of the Night Elf campaign of The Frozen Throne, Illidan makes a point to his brother Malfurion that he was never interested in world domination, and that all he wanted was as much magical power as possible in the world.
Webcomics
- The Gamer: Han Jee-han awakens to Sudden Game Interface, and being a natural gamer, sees to make his stats go up, actively seeking artifacts or villains to increase his numbers. This puts him on a radar of the Ancient Conspiracy who sees him as an Outside-Context Problem, while he in turn finds them interesting opponents to rise against.
- The Order of the Stick: The arrogant elf wizard Vaarsuvius is adventuring in hopes of gaining "ultimate arcane power", believing that magic trumps anything else. This pride turns out to be their Fatal Flaw, and after a Break the Haughty arc where they unleash a Fantastic Nuke with terrible collateral damage, they become The Atoner and dial back their ambitions.
