The Combat Pragmatist - Television Tropes & Idioms

Jagi from Fist of the North Star made a career out of doing this. Be it spitting needles, using a gun, or making a hole in a oil tanker and lighting the leaking oil on fire with him on top of said tanker.
- This translates into the video game, in which his moveset involves using a shotgun, setting oil barrels and gasoline puddles on fire, throwing needles, chaining his opponent to a cinderblock, using pillars and random junk as weapons, pistol-whipping, and the aforementioned oil tanker trick.
Nanoha has no problem shooting people in the back, magically freezing them so they can't resist her attacks, etc.
- Deed tends to take her enemies by surprise, often by jumping out to suddenly attack, attacking from behind, or getting up from supposedly being unconscious for a sneak attack.
Samurai Girl: Real Bout High School
- Asuka Kuronari. Sure, she's a ninja, but she proves almost suicidally determined to come out on top against Kyoichi Kunugi, who has her hopelessly outclassed throughout the fight. That is, until she starts crying her eyes out, telling him her pathetic life's story and deploying a smoke bomb while he's distracted, allowing her compatriot Xiaoxing the chance to attack him.
- Xiaoxing herself, as well; her entire fighting style revolves around using Instant Knots to tie her opponent up, thereby incapacitating them.
- Kunugi often uses the Hannibal Lecture to disarm opponents (figuratively speaking) while confusing them with illusions and violently seizing every opening in their defense.
Ranma Saotome is a Combat Pragmatist whenever he battles an opponent that is clearly more powerful than him. When facing his rival Ryoga, who'd been powered up by the Mark of the Gods, he resorted to using the "Saotome Desperation Techniques", which were basically just creative ways to make his opponent look away from him so could attack them while they were distracted ("What's that behind you?!", "Look, there's 500 yen on the ground!", etc.). When he was getting his butt kicked by prince Herb, a man with an irrational hatred of breasts (due to be being cursed by a naked girl while he was distracted by her boobs), Ranma repeatedly flashed his breasts at him, until the guy was so overwhelmed with anger that his accuracy was shot to heck. The man is the heir to the Saotome Anything-Goes School of Martial Arts for a reason.
- Strangely enough, the other two key elements of his personal style (alongside this) are Beat Them At Their Own Game and Honor Before Reason.
Joseph Joestar from Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure part 2 gleefully declares himself to be "a master at cheating". He's the main character, too.
- His grandson and son (born in that order) inherit some of his skill.
Askeladd in Vinland Saga is more than willing to just have his men stick an opponent full of arrows then fight him one on one.
- Thorgrimm as well.
Kiritsugu Emiya of Fate Zero wants to save people, but came to understand that saving some means sacrificing others and decided that at least he could save the many by sacrificing the few, and became an expert in killing mages with extremely low-blow tactics. This leads to personality conflicts with the "knight of the sword", Saber, who he summoned as a servant in the Fourth Holy Grail War and who greatly believes in fighting in an upright fashion. Saber wanted to duel the "knight of the spear" Lancer as fellow heroes. Kiritsugu held the fiancee of Lancer's master at gunpoint, forcing that master into ordering Lancer's suicide.
- To a lesser degree Archer, who grew up to learn the same lessons Kiritsugu did, and grates on Saber and the Fifth War's Lancer with his combat pragmatism.
- One Crowning Moment Of Awesome of Kiritsugu involved using C4 explosives to bring down a magically defended building. Practical indeed.
  - And he considered this worryingly soft of himself because he put in a bomb threat to get the civilians out about fifteen minutes before. Even though his target would most likely never even get said warning from the hotel staff let alone bother to think it was dangerous.
Ohgami Itto has been known to kill his quarries with a sword... or spears or naginatas... or his own bare hands... or any other damn thing within his reach, from a wooden board split in two with a knifehand strike to a proto-gatling gun.
Saitou Hajime in Rurouni Kenshin, who explains this to an idealistic youngster by stating that in a real fight, there is no such thing as fair.
Honorable mention must go to Masaru Kota. When threatened by a much larger bruiser what does he do? He catches the bastard with his pants down (quite literally — he ambushed him on a toilet) and beats him to kingdom come. Can't get more pragmatic than that.
Guts is no honourable swordsman. He's willing to let opponents beat him up so that he can blast them with his Arm Cannon at point-blank range, bites an opponent's sword in one fight after Griffith jumps on his sword, and actually prefers to kill opponents with long-ranged weapons rather than engaging in melee combat.
- And this doesn't even mention things like his willingness to take innocents hostage if he thinks that it'll give him an advantage, which fits the concept of "fighting dirty" much better than anything mentioned there. At one point, he uses a small child, hanging by his clothes on his sword, as bait to distract a swarm of vicious, homicidal "fairies" into chasing him into a barn where he blows them up. The kid doesn't get hurt, either.
Vagabond has Miyamoto Musashi who ironically embodies this trope moreso than merely being a swordsman; more specifically he is described as "flexible and unfettered," taking the opportunity as it comes. Notably demonstrated in fighting the Yoshioka at Ichijouji, as he takes the opportunity of showing up an hour early and from the mountains instead of the road, allowing him to severely wound their leader right at the beginning. He may have defeated Inshun, Shishido Baiken (his Dual Wielding was to overcome the different mechanics involved in the chain and sickle), and the Yoshioka brothers (defeating the second brother's attempt to clinch and set up a killing blow by gutting him with his own wakizashi on instinct), but this is ''the'' defining fight for him. It's also a defining fight for the Yoshioka as they try and almost succeed at this, but can't quite "reach that far" and he mostly succeeds at fending off their attempts. (The closest they ever come to actually killing Musashi is when Nanpo Yoichibe tackles him to the ground and holds him down, but it fails since his cohorts hesitate to simply stab Musashi to death through Yoichibe.)
- In general the Yoshioka leadership failed to prepare themselves and their followers for the essential fact that instead of dueling it was kill-or-be-killed.
Early in the manga, Naruto is challenged by Konohamaru, a much younger brat. He simply punches him in the head right then and there, not bothering to wait for any official nonsense.
Sousuke, Sousuke, Sousuke. Being raised on guerilla warfare and land mines does not an honorable fighter make. Apart from pulling the Indy stint no less than three times and inducing two of the most painful looking crotch stomps known to man, he also once saw it fit to use guns and tear gas in an official martial arts spar...and when that was barred, a hand grenade.
Rokudo Mukuro from Katekyo Hitman Reborn. He pretty much uses 90% of the techniques listed in the Fighting Dirty trope. It might be a contributing reason (other than being a Bishonen) to why he's so popular.
Ryo Narushima of Shamo has this as his signature. This is part of him being The Unfettered.
- And it isn't limited to combat per se. In an early Tournament Arc he proceeds to gather as much dirt as possible on his opponents' private lives, then blackmails them into throwing the match. A solid case could be made for Shamo being a Deconstruction of such character type as Ryo is reviled both by other characters and majority of readers.
Slayers has Xelloss. Gaav states that Xelloss' specialty is to attack someone in the physical plane from the astral plane, which would best be characterized as a sneak attack (as Gaav demonstrates). Also, in Xelloss' battle against Valgaav he uses some very dirty tricks, one of the most notable being when a stray blast put a team mate in danger (Filia), he rescues her then immediately drops her on Valgaav.
- And then there was his cheap shot on Lina to get his hands on Galvayra...a pressure point shot to put her out? Practical.
Most characters in Blade Of The Immortal, except the truly bushido believing Samurai (and sometimes not even those), are like this. The sympathetic villain Anotsu even based his his entire sword school Itto Ryu on this concept, saying that the only thing which matters in a fight is that you win and survive but not how. His main goal at the beginning of the series was even to destroy other schools who, in his view, only teach fancy moves by making their students hit immovable practice targets.
Afro Samurai has no trouble with breaking most of the rules of bushido if they'll save his life. One of his trademark moves is using an enemy as a Human Shield. In the manga, he'll use innocent bystanders, too.
In Fushigi Yuugi, this is typically Tasuki's first instinct. His first line of attack is a fan that shoots fire, and he's not above combining it with a Dynamic Entry. Nor is he above taking hostages, or attacking while his opponent is talking or otherwise distracted. On the rare occasion he's put Honor Before Reason, he explicitly regrets it.
Jet Black from Cowboy Bebop is something of a master of this trope, utilising headbutts, glass bottles, the element of surprise and HIS OWN SPACESHIP to deadly effect, in one instance he is able to turn the tide of battle against a much better trained opponent by stopping a bullet with his own bionic arm.
Bleach has several of these characters. The most obvious is Ichimaru Gin. During his fight against Hitsugaya, he does everything from carving wood chips to throw in his face to stabbing his sword through his jacket so Hitsugaya won't see it coming.
- Primera Espada Coyote Starrk is normally Brilliant But Lazy, but when he releases his zanpaktou, he gets serious. He blasts a Cero into Kyoraku's back at the first opportunity. Considering Starrk is Captain Kyoraku's Evil Counterpart, it shouldn't be so surprising that ol' Shunsui is just as bad when he's not being lazy. He actually repays the favor, stabbing Starrk in the back right as he's about to finish off Rose and Love.
  - If we're going to list Starrk, then it would be proper to list Shunsui first. He spent the ENTIRE first half of their fight trying to backstab Starrk, and failed every time. Of course, since he's a shinigami, the designated good guys of the series, the fans seem to ignore this fact, or rationalize it as a good thing, while at the same time condemning Starrk for doing it.
- Mayuri Kurotsuchi qualifies as well, mixing Batman-like levels of Preparation with all sorts of cheaty biological warfare techniques.
- Seventh division lieutenant Tetsuzaemon Iba, in contrast to Ikkaku Madarame, believes that the most important thing is winning and carrying out orders, and as such, believes that running away or attacking from behind should be done when necessary.
Runge in Monster, while fighting Tenma and, later, Roberto.
Revy from Black Lagoon often assumes this role when she's not going for absolutely mind-boggling combat stunts. When a neo-Nazi corners her and goes on a speech about how mighty his Luger is, she shoots him in the gut, yells at him for wasting all his time talking, and then shoots him in the head.
Despite often winding up in fair fights anyways, most of the cast of Fullmetal Alchemist pull dirty tricks in at least one big fight, if not all of them. Ed is a good example—in one fight he gets a foe to drop his guard by shouting to his brother (who has not just snuck up behind him), and in another he realizes that the ninja he is fighting gets sloppy whenever her master is insulted and milks it for all it's worth. The first time he "beats" Alphonse while sparring he throws a towel in his brother's face and knocks him to the ground before he can react, while injured heavily enough that Al is afraid to hit back.
- In Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, wandering emperor Ling uses this tactic on Envy by throwing sand into his eyes when the homunculus, after snaring him, offers a sadistic choice on how he should kill him. Envy shouts at him in shock and anger on his cheating trick, but Ling counters that all the years of constant assassination attempts on him had made him willing to use any dirty trick in the book to live and run his country.
- Major General Armstrong is also a big proponent of pragmatism, although on a more abstract scale. She considers racism a luxury she cannot afford, because she needs varying viewpoints to evaluate the best course of action. She will also pursue any technology or any form of alchemy that will give her troops an advantage in combat.
Pretty much everyone in Darker Than Black, but particularly Hei. He attacks from ambush whenever possible, and is particularly fond of electrocuting his enemies through anything handy, be it a pool of blood, a car, or a well-thrown choke wire. If he's in a bad situation, he ninjas away, and at one point even jumped off a building so he could come back a few minutes later and attack his opponent when he wasn't expecting it. His lack of compunctions about cheating is one of several reasons for the Fan Nickname "Chinese Electric Batman."
When not participating in sanctioned matches, the protagonists of Pokemon Special have demonstrated pragmatic strategies like attacking the opposing trainer directly or even destroying their opponent's Pokeballs.
- Villains do it too, though sometimes more in the Kick The Dog territory...
In Medaka Box, the Abnormal Munakata turns out to be a combat pragmatist, though strange; he starts out fighting with multiple swords pulled out of Hammerspace, and once he determines the way Zenkichi fights(barehanded, by the way), he pulls a gigantic mace out of nowhere. When Zenkichi catches it with his shirt, Munakata pulls out pistols.

Being this kind of character is half the reason the Joker can threaten Batman toe-to-toe; the other half is his enthusiasm in combat. The Dark Knight sees him use a knife hidden in his boot, pull off the now famous 'magic trick' sucker punch, violate Mook Chivalry, and sic dogs on Batman before going in with a lead pipe.
- Also in The Dark Knight, one can see many small knives and other weapons on table, shortly after Joker is arrested. It's rather comical as to how many knives they took off of him, in fact.
  - What's even more comical is that in the shot where they're laying the knives out on the table, the last one is a POTATO PEELER... and the person handling it clearly takes a second look as if to say "wtf?"
  - Batman himself saw his fighting style noticeably updated for the current trilogy to reflect this, moving away from the flashier style he is usually shown to have in live action media. This was a deliberate choice by Nolan and Bale. Henri Ducard even hangs a lanmpshade on this while training Bruce Wayne saying "this isn't a dance."
  - Ducard is one himself "You've sacrificed sure footing for a killing strike {tap, Bruce falls through the ice)." And his mantra "Mind your surroundings." Which Batman is doing by the end of the movie.
Batman is himself the DC's poster boy for this trope.
Huntress: Did I just see you cheating?
Batman: Winning.
- As much as the Joker is known for fighting dirty, he's not the biggest Combat Pragmatist in the movies. Consider for a moment that fistfights against the Scarecrow are likely to include the use of biological weaponry.
Rorschach from Watchmen: Even more glaring of an omission. He uses several household items to give himself a chance to get away. To wit, he improvises a flamethrower with hairspray and a match as he flees upstairs, on the basis that people are reluctant to chase a psycho up a burning staircase. The first person up the stairs after him gets a handful of black pepper thrown directly into his eyes and his floundering gives him the time to draw his last weapon—his compressed-air-powered grappling-hook gun,
- In the videogame Watchmen: The End Is Nigh, you can control Rorschach in battle. He's not nearly as skilled a fighter as Nite Owl (who uses an adapted form of martial arts), but he makes up for it with absolutely devastating strikes, and freely uses weapons, such as nightsticks, bottles, knives and crowbars, which Nite Owl refuses to do.
- Ozymandias fights dirty too. It's not immediately obvious, but he's perfectly willing to take advantage of any psychological weaknesses his opponent has and uses the environment for his own benefit. Of course, with him, what looks like an Improvised Weapon was probably specifically placed right there hours ago.
Nightwing, despite being a Technical Pacifist, does this with acrobatic flair. He basically fights like Batman with a sense of humor: nose tweaks, groin kicks, and distractions in the form of ass smacks are not outside of his domain.
There is not a force on Earth that can get The Punisher to fight fair.
Vick "The Rain" from 100 Bullets is not above fighting dirty and will even use his own allies as human shields.
Much of the G.I. Joe comic books involves this trope. Around issue #75, Tunnel-Rat emerges from a well, tunnel and mows down about ten Cobra soldiers from behind. An issue of Special Missions has one Joe save another by simply beating the hell out of a captured CIA prisoner for needed intelligence.
Cerebus, being a veteran mercenary, knows better than to fight fair. Early in the series, he was face-to-face with a rebel mastermind and as his opponent strode out onto a bridge, finally revealing his identity, Cerebus heaved a rock at his head, causing him to stumble off the bridge to his death. Afterward, this exchange took place:
Lord Julius: That wasn't exactly fair, was it? I mean, he thought you were going to fight to the death with swords!
Cerebus: He is dead and Cerebus is alive... You can't get much fairer than that.
Throughout his adventures, Corto Maltese does his share of kicking people in the nuts and shooting them in the back.
In the final issue of Tim Drake's Robin series, he's forced to fight Lady Shiva. Tim knows that he's hugely outmatched, so he poisons her food two days before the fight with a heart-rate dependent neurotoxin.
The following exchange from a comic where Deadpool and one of the forgettable 90s X-Teams are facing a villain who can dampen mutant abilities:
Mutant Super Hero: All right, just because our powers don't work, doesn't mean we're helpless. We shout engage him one-on one in hand to hand combat with our strongest fighters going first until he drops.
Deadpool: Or, hear me out here, or—
BLAM!
We could do that.
Mutant Super Hero: You murdered him!
Deadpool: Yeah, I'll send you my bill for that.
Warren Ellis' series Desolation Jones has the titular character lampshade his status as as a combat pragmatist. When attacked by a fearsome S&M clad bodyguard, Jones explains that the combatant who wins isn't the strongest but the one who cares the least for holding anything back. The sickly old man then stabs his finger into the charging guard's eye socket and pulls him skull first into a wall, knocking him unconscious.
Jesse Custer from Preacher may want to be the good guy, but he really loves his Groin Attacks.

In Twilight Valley everyone fights dirty. It even gets a Lampshade Hanging.
The Firefly fanfic Forward also plays with this, including replicating the legendary Indiana Jones scene with River casually shooting an Arrogant Kung Fu Guy who tries to fight her with a bo staff. At one point in the most recent story arc, Mal points out that he considers any fight where he's forced to fight fair as inherently unfair.

The most definitive example in all of film, when Indy opts to shoot the swordsman, wasn't in the original script. Harrison Ford had food poisoning, and wasn't up for the scripted fight for another take.
- Subverted in Temple of Doom, where Indy tries to shoot swordsmen, but discovers his guns were taken and is forced to run instead.
- Lampshaded in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull when Indy warns Mutt about the dangers of bringing a knife to a gunfight.
The newest incarnation of James Bond played by Daniel Craig is particularly appealing due to being this kind of character, not that the other Bonds were averse to getting a little dirty themselves.
- Most notably, in The Man With The Golden Gun Bond faces a trained martial artist in a karate match. When the other man bows, Bond kicks him in the throat.
The professional fighter "Mad Dog" in Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior was a particularly dramatic example of this, using absolutely everything that came to hand as a weapon, even ripping out electrical wires to attack his opponent.
Jack Sparrow beginning with the first Pirates Of The Caribbean movie. He pulls a gun on Will Turner during their sword duel.
Will: You cheated!
Jack: Pirate.
- Will eventually learns (from Jack, of course) a few things about fighting dirty; Elizabeth, on the other hand, takes to it like a duck presented with something ducks feel very at home in.
- In another Jack/Will exchange:
Will: You ignored the rules of engagement! In a fair fight, I'd kill you!
Jack: Well, that's not much incentive for me to fight fair then, is it?
Let's not forget the scene between Greedo and Han Solo, where Han shoots Greedo from beneath the table. We have to mention it in as many pages as possible.
Most of the characters played by the late Charles Bronson wouldn't know "fair" if it jumped out of the bushes and challenged them to a fistfight. Which is not a smart thing to do.
Goofy acrobatics aside, most of Jackie Chan's characters are perfectly willing to strike some wince-inducing blows and think around their opponents almost as much as they hit them. And that is not even taking into account Jackie being practically poster boy for Improbable Weapon User.
A number of characters from Ip Man, not least the titular hero, who can easily go from smiling genially like the nice guy he is outside combat to kicking your joints in and raining Rapid Fire Fisticuffs on your face and head.
Long before Indiana Jones there was Paul Newman's Judge Roy Bean who dealt with one challenger by shooting him in the back with a buffalo rifle from a decently long range.
Budd from Kill Bill easily defeats the Bride, by pretending that he's not aware of her sneaking up on him, and lying in wait with a shotgun full of rock salt. All the other assassins faced her "fairly" in hand to hand, and lost. Unfortunately for Budd, Elle works in the same way, and kills him with poison, just as she did Pei Mei. Despite being a Pragmatist, Elle falls victim to a related trope by insisting that Budd make the Bride suffer rather than just kill her. It comes back on her.
The titular characters from Boondock Saints who actually kill a guy by dropping a porcelain toilet off a building so that it crushes him.
Jason Bourne is a definite and obvious example - hitting foes with everything including the kitchen sink, preparing traps and ambushes Mac Gyver style in the heat of combat, and lulling foes into a false sense of security whenever possible (see his escape from the customs officials in the second movie).
Liam Neeson from Taken. He only fights "fair" if he needs you alive for questioning.
- Of particular note is his use of the (irritatingly never-used-in-movies) trick of dealing with imminent reinforcements by simply playing possum in a room full of dead enemies, then blasting said reinforcements a few moments after they arrive.
Swashbuckler:
Ned Lynch: Never fight fair when you're fighting for your life.
The sole reason why El Topo survived every and all fights in the first half of the film. Eventually subverted because the last master is so good, no amount of cheating done by El Topo can even come close to tipping the scales in his favor.
Used ironically in Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid. When challenged to a knife fight by a mutinous crew member, Butch insists that they first go over the rules. As the other man scoffs, "There are no rules in a knife fight," Butch delivers a swift Groin Attack.
Snake Plissken from Escape From New York and Escape From LA. To put out one example offhand, he offers a bunch of thugs a chance to do an old fashioned Duel To The Death with guns, where he throws a can, and once the can hits the ground, they all draw and shoot. He throws the can up, and promptly draws his gun and kills all of them, not even waiting for the can to hit the ground.
William Munny from Unforgiven. He shot a man crawling to safety from behind a rock, an unarmed saloon owner (although he should have armed himself if he was gonna decorate his saloon with William's friend), and the Big Bad without letting him have the chance to draw.
The One-Armed Boxer from Master of the Flying Guillotine is not above tricking other martial arts masters into ambushes and booby traps to survive. He lures the barefoot Muay Thai fighter into a hut with a metal floor. His entire martial arts school arrives to lock them inside the hut and light a fire beneath it so the Thai boxer roasts from the feet up. For the blind Flying Guillotine, however, One-Armed Boxer first manufactures a field of bamboo targets to destroy the master's signature weapon. Then he lures him into a coffin shop that he has booby trapped with birds to deafen the master, and axe-throwers to chop him down to size.
Nineteen Forty One.
Wally Stephens: I know I can't beat you in a fair fight.
'Stretch' Sitarski: [scoffs] Stupid, I don't fight fair.
Wally Stephens: Neither do I!
[kicks Stretch in the crotch, then hits him across the face with a belt of .50 calibre machine-gun ammo. Stretch smiles dumbly for a second then falls over]
Gideon, Pierce Brosnan's character from Seraphim Falls doles out pragmatism and damage throughout the movie.
Steven Seagal characters are almost uniformly highly brutal.

Caine/Hari from The Acts Of Caine is widely considered the best infighter alive, even after being rendered partially paraplegic. He does not fight fair, ever, and it allows him to win fights where he really should have had no chance. Illustration: right after his lowest point in Blade of Tyshalle, he escapes a dungeon cell by luring a guard in and provoking him to attack, apparently giving up the element of surprise. To recap, this is a naked and malnourished Caine, covered in his own filth, chained to the wall with his legs currently not working. The guard on the other hand is armored in chainmail, upright and well fed, and has the "chance" to draw his club and attack Caine first. After a few minutes the situation changes to that of a naked and unconscious guard in Caine's shackles while a now armed and armored Caine crawls up the dungeon steps.
Ender in Ender's Game explains to an enemy that real soldiers don't play fair; they do whatever it takes to keep themselves alive. Ender doesn't just win; he annihilates. If he's kicking someone's ass, they won't have an ass left to be kicked when he's done.
- Bean makes a similar speech to Achilles in Ender's Shadow about how real soldiers do whatever it takes to win.
Staying with Orson Scott Card for a moment, in his novelisation of The Abyss the SEAL team leader, Coffey, is mentioned as having taken down a neighbourhood bully eight years his senior not in a straight-up street fight: rather, by going, lying in wait for the guy, and caving his head in with a cinderblock when the guy's back was turned. He then describes how Coffey tidies up, goes home, and never seeks any recognition of his act. On the other hand, Coffey is characterised as somewhere between a Heroic Sociopath and a Complete Monster, so Your Mileage May Vary on this one.
Sam Vimes of Terry Pratchett's Discworld is a great believer in dirty fighting. His fighting style consists of using everything you have to hit anything you can. He calls it "artful". About the only time he's ever been delicate about the subject was when he was mentioning Nobby's "favorite kick" in front of Lady Sybil Ramkin.
- His most iconic move is probably the "Vimes Elbow."
- Also from Discworld: "Cohen had heard of fighting fair, and had long ago decided he wanted no part of it."
- There's also one of the Silver Horde squaring off against a ninja in Interesting Times. After pretending he's getting ready to break a block of wood barehanded and making sure the ninja is watching his hands, he kicks him in the treasury and whacks him over the head with said block. Should've watched the leg, indeed.
  - Later on in the same book, one of the local lords shows off his Samurai by having him throw a handkerchief into the air, and slicing it cleanly in half. Cohen then throws his handkerchief into the air...and then chops off the Samurai's head as he's watching the handkerchief.
- It's implied in the City Watch novels, that in the street fights of Anhk-Morpork being able to use your hands is already considered posh.
- Vimes' fighting style is contrasted with that of the Marquis of Fantailler, a send-up of the Marquis de Queensbury who "wrote a set of rules for what he termed 'the noble art of fisticuffs,' which mostly consisted of a list of places where people weren't allowed to hit him. Many people were impressed with his work and later stood with noble chest out-thrust and fists balled in a spirit of manly aggression against people who hadn't read the Marquis's book but did know how to knock people senseless with a chair." A surprising number of those people's last words were something along the lines of "Stuff the bloody Marquis of Fantail-"
- Carrot, however, seems to be able to make said fighting fair work, insofar as it can be considered fighting fair for Carrot to be getting involved to begin with. In Carrot's case fighting fair might actually be considered pragmatic, what with Theory Of Narrative Causality and all. Fighting fair, and generally playing fair, seem to be Carrot's form of Refuge In Audacity. Plus, who needs dirty tricks when they can cold-cock a troll with a right cross?
- Vimes' antagonist in Night Watch is Carcer, whom Vimes describes as a "bottle covey". The guy who'll take every possible way to kill you, just because he likes it, and takes advantage of the system whenever he can. In some ways Carcer is "evil Vimes", which is hinted at several times in the book.
- Although he's not a viewpoint character, it's very clear that General Tacitus was a big proponent of this style of warfare; his method of command tended to not only conquer lots of territory but do it with most of his men still alive at the end, which more traditional military historians felt was somehow cheating. Vimes is, rather unsurprisingly, a fan.
  - It should be noted that the regular style of warfare from Tacticus's time till the time the novels take place, was basically to inflict as many "heroic casualties" on each other's army as possible. Which means to allow as many of your men to be killed by the enemy as possible. If you have more men at the end than the enemy it was a nice bonus.
  - I think it was Tacticus who described one of the good strategies for assaulting an near-impenetrable fortress with a good supply of water and food available to the defenders: "See (that the occupants) stay there". He considers the other good strategy to be "Endeavor to be the ones inside."
Simon Illyan, Miles's 50-something boss in the Vorkosigan Saga, is a fairly uptight but Reasonable Authority Figure. He doesn't actually get his hands dirty, he has underlings for that. When his artificial memory chip is sabotaged, and his underlings have to get him into medical treatment, though, he fights back...and he fights dirty. No one knew, because no one had ever seen him fight before.
Will and Lyra from the His Dark Materials trilogy have no problems fighting dirty if this gives them an advantage. Being children going up against adults who are very willing to kill them, it's just about their only chance to win, anyhow.
- Mention should also go to Lyra's ability to inspire other people to follow her example, leading a rabble of confused children to pack rock-hard slushballs and "aim for the eyes".
Corwin in the Chronicles Of Amber is big on this. For example, in his climactic sword duel with a powerhouse foreshadowed a book earlier, Corwin runs away, rounds a corner, throws his cloak into the other man's face as he follows, then stabs the guy while he's blind.
Poul Anderson is fond of these characters.
- In his "Wing Alek" series of short stories the main character is forbidden from ever using killing to win a conflict (luckily the villains don't know that) so he uses underhanded methods to get the villains to defeat themselves.
- His character Nicholas Van Rijn from the "Polesotechnic League" series also frequently uses sneaky methods. Van Rijn's Crowning Moment Of Awesome is probably when taunts an alien prince into biting his behind. The alien prince realizes too late that human biochemistry is toxic to his people.
While he prides himself on his pure combat skill, the assassin Artemis Entreri of the Forgotten Realms novels is not above using blackmail, dirty tactics and overwhelming odds to win fights when necessary. It isn't often necessary. There is one particularly memorable scene in the Icewind Dale trilogy where he spits a mouthful of sewer water into Drizzt's face to gain the upper hand. Drizzt had just a few minutes earlier been wondering why Entreri was a little less talkative.
The Black Company, a mercenary force in the series of the same name by Glen Cook, make a living, and survive in the face of enormous odds, by fighting dirty and using every resource available to them in order to make themselves look like the baddest motherfuckers around. When it works, things look good for the Company. When it doesn't, that's when the fun begins.
Smilla Jaspersen from Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg has a history of winning against people much bigger and stronger than her. She stabs a man in the neck with a screwdriver when her tries to kidnap her, and topples a shelf onto a person she thinks is following her in the filing room of an office building. She also forces her stepmother to listen to her demands by pinching her in the crotch and bending her pinky finger all the way back. Apparently she's been this way all her life. She beat up a racist school bully much larger than her by finding out where he lived and ambushing him early in the morning, sending him to the hospital. When her father, a noted surgeon, tried to grab her and drag her home after she ran away at the age of twelve, she cut him with a scalpel she stole from the hospital she escaped from. When she is trapped on a ship with the vaguely psychopathic character Jakkelsen, she makes a weapon from a towel and a ball bearing, and injures him badly enough that he needs medical attention. However, she is always described as a petite and delicate woman. She is the narrator, by the way.
In the Warhammer 40000 Horus Heresy series:
- In Dan Abnett's Horus Rising, Loken defeats Lucius in a practice sword fight by punching him; he's still smarting over it in Graham Mc Neill's Fulgrim.
- In Ben Counter's Galaxy In Flames, Tarvitz, who watched, commented that he had learned from it, to do whatever was needed to win. So, Lucius being a Turn Coat who had betrayed them to Horus and having gotten into a figh with Tarvitz, Tarvitz has the Emperor's Children coming to make a flanking attack shoot at Lucius and end their fight.
- Possibly the best example of this trope in the 40K universe is that of Alpharius and the (Pre-Heresy) Alpha Legion. Whilst other legions had very specific ways of doing things (one legion would specialise in assault, another in defense, seigecraft etc), Alpharius decreed that his marines should master all aspects of warfare. He went even further by doing away with "inefficient" things like honour and chivalry, and often conquered entire planets through stealth and treachery.
Don "Mad Dog" Slade from David Drake's Cross the Stars observes that you should only hit someone with your bare hands when you're naked and your feet are nailed to the floor.
Similar Advice is passed along to the protagonist of Star Dance by a Space Fleet Captain: "My Daddy also told me 'Only hit the soft parts with your hand. Hit the hard parts with a utensil.' "
If Repairman Jack can't beat it, he'll shoot it. Heck, he'll probably shoot it even if he can beat it - he'd rather err on the side of caution. Now, if shooting doesn't work (which is not unlikely, given some things he bumps into) things will get really funny.
In A Song Of Ice And Fire, the mercenary Bronn regularly uses unchivalrous tactics to win fights. When championing Tyrion in a trial by combat, he uses light armor and evades his heavily armored knight adversary until the man is exhausted. The knights in attendance find these tactics in very poor taste. When challenged to a duel on horseback, Bronn targets the knight's horse during the lance charge. This surprises his opponent, who expected Bronn to follow the rules of jousting. Oberyn Martell's use of light armor, a spear, and poison to fight the much larger Gregor Clegane also qualifies.
Feyd-Rautha of Dune hides a needle with a paralyzing agent on his waist in his knife-fight with Paul. On top of that, he also pretends to be "shield-conditioned" (slower than he is) and leaves his right hip undefended a little too much, leading Paul to guess there's a poison needle hidden there. However, when locked in close, Paul trys to keep himself to Feyd's left only to discovers the needle is actually on his left hip and he was playing Paul very, very well.
Lazarus Long in Time Enough For Love tells a little anecdote about how some rather stupid 'explorers' tried to kill him, rape his wife and take his land while he happens to be unarmed (rare for him) and a decent bit smaller than all three of them. So he sics his dog on one, his wife kills one with a knife and as the third one is dying he complains about not even having a chance in the fight. Lazarus tells him he was given the chance to be a civil human being and kills him too.
The Dresden Files has Kincaid, Psycho For Hire mercenary and all-around Combat Pragmatist. He actually gets mopey when Harry tells him he can't just level the vampires' hideout with explosives because it would kill the hostages. For a short time anyway, before he goes back to gruff and grumbling about how poor the plan is.
- Heck, we're forgetting Harry himself. He doesn't like it, but he WILL do what it takes. A brief, and by no means comprehensive list of examples:
  - Up against a deranged Fae Queen, Harry, the wizard, instead of slinging his baddest spells, decides to Zerg Rush her instead. Using pixies. Armed with steel boxcutters. After which he physically pins her until she dies of a combo of blood loss and cold iron poisoning.
  - When fighting fallen angel host Nicodemus, he realizes the only thing Nick is vulnerable to is the artifact which grants him invulnerability. So Harry strangles Nicodemus with it (its conveniently in the shape of a noose).
  - Harry has specifically ordered his superpowered guard dog Mouse to kill more than one enemy.
  - Zombie T-Rex. Enough said.
  - After seeing Kincaid using incendiary shotgun rounds on vampires, he specifically starts researching the fun stuff you can do with custom shotgun ammo. Knowledge which he later puts to good use.
  - His standard procedure for dealing with ambushes: Run away. Fast. Anything knowingly attacking a wizard has probably come prepared. To this end, he seriously took up gymming and martial arts to improve his stamina and melee skills.
- Ahem! Ebenezer Mc Coy...satellite...enough said
In the Sword Of Truth series, Kahlan learns about how the Mud People once slaughtered a vastly larger tribe simply by killing them everywhere except on the battlefields. In their homes, in their privies, in their beds, everywhere. Later, when confronting an army of D'Haran rebels who have sided with the Imperial Order, she puts these lessons to work. To start with, she poisons a cart of liquor and leaves it to be found by the enemy officers. Later, she leads a night raid into the enemy camp...naked, like the Celts, and butchers several of the officers remaining. This trend continues as she has her army made particular emphasis on killing physicians and other non-combatants, as killing one of them is as good as killing dozens of other soldiers who could no longer be healed by them. By the end, she has led an army of recruits to victory against a battle-hardened veteran force ten times its size.
- Later, during the fighting retreat as the Imperial Order in its millions finally invades the New World, Kahlan increases her pragmatism by an order of magnitude. After the D'Haran army is handily defeated in a stand-up fight, she takes charge and spends the better part of a year using hit-and-run guerilla tactics to grind down the Order's army by hundreds of thousands. In her most impressive feat, she she uses a barrel of powdered glass and scatters it in front of an advancing enemy force, killing thousands from lung infections and causing tens of thousands to go blind.
The eponymous Action Girl of Mike Shepherd's Kris Longknife series. Shepherd mentioned that while most marines had to be trained out of notions of fighting fair, she took to dirty fighting like a duck to water.
- This (female) troper finds that true to life. Women have no tradition of 'sportsmanship' to unlearn.
The Third Rule of the bodyguard school called Matador Villa in Steve Perry's Matador series is: "There are no rules in a fight involving death."
Anita Blake isn't at all averse to this, especially considering she's usually up against vampires, shapechangers or worse but she pales compared to Edward, famous for using a flamethrower against some vamps.
This shows up all the time in Mercedes Lackey's work, especially her Velgarth novels. Fighting instructors, as opposed to fencing masters, constantly emphasise to their students that there's no such thing as "unfair" or "dishonourable" tactics in a real fight. Fencing matches and the like are a different thing entirely.
Gordon R Dickerson's "Dorsai".
- The Dorsai do believe in thinking outside the box. However, they would never, ever, violate the "Mercenaries Code" (which is something like the Geneva Conventions). When one person asked one of the Dorsai commanders if he had ever shot prisoners, the commander got quite threatening about the idea that he would ever do such a thing.
Mike Z. Williamson's Freehold, especially the Black Ops. Think Improvised Weapons Of Mass Destruction.
In the Star Wars Expanded Universe novel Starfighters of Adumar, Wes Janson winds up in a duel using a blastsword, a weapon he has very little idea how to use. What Janson ends up doing is parrying his opponent's first strike, then knocking the sword out with his hands and beating the crap out of him in unarmed combat.
Partially because she's untrained but mostly because she's her, Sirantha Jax of The Sirantha Jax Series will use any means to win — fighting dirty, crazy tactics, you name it.
Alanna/Alan from Tamora Pierce's Tortall Universe is being abused by a bully. What does she do? She goes into the city, and has her friend George and his men teach her street fighting. Alanna and the bully fight, and Alanna wins. Of course, everything that she does goes against the code of conduct for the boys, but...
In Chris Roberson's Imperial Fists novel Sons of Dorn, Jean-Robur learns to fight like this in his first battle, stabbing a foe In The Back.

In the pirate episode of Married With Children, Captain Courage (Al) and Rubio the Cruel (Steve) are sword fighting for Scarlett's (Peg) freedom, Rubio boasts, "How can you think to beat me? I was taught swordfighting by the finest teachers of the finest schools in Europe!" Courage simply says: "Oh yeah, I learned in the streets!" and knees Rubio in the nads, winning the battle.
Michael in Burn Notice. He once used a copy of Cat Fancy magazine to beat up some loan shark thugs.
- The best part is he'll always explain via voice-over what he's doing and why he's doing it. For example, in a car chase, he explains that small-caliber weapons can't penetrate the engine block, so it's best to aim for the windshield, or try to ricochet bullets up from the ground, as it's really hard to drive when you've got bullets coming at you from under your car.
- "Spies are not trained to fight fair. Spies are trained to win."
Captain Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly goes here too. Man cheats in a fight every real chance he gets.
- Similarly, the Operative fights dirty too. As Mal himself exclaims, "You shot me in the back!"
  - Notably in this scene from Serenity (according to the DVD commentary, it was created as a deliberate subversion of the controversial Greedo Shot First incident, and was the second of three "Mal shoots an unarmed man" moments just in the film proper).
    Operative: "I want to resolve this like civilized men. I'm not threatening you... I'm unarmed..."
    Mal: "Good."
    Mal shoots him, turns to run. Operative grabs Mal from behind.
    Operative: "I am however wearing full body armor - I am not a moron."
  - It might be thought that Mal is still honorable enough not to shoot a man who isn't wearing a helmet in the head, but hitting someone with a from-the-hip quick-draw like that, you're lucky to actually hit them, let alone shoot them in the head. That he managed a direct torso hit is testament to Mal's skill, not his honor.
- River also fights quite dirty when she goes loopy, going as far as crushing Jayne's genitals.
- For that matter, Jayne himself. And Zoe "sand in the eyes" Washburn.
- The only person who fights even remotely fair is Simon in Safe, and that was only because he was unarmed, outnumbered, and had never been in a fight before. Simon might be one of those people who actually read the Marquis of Fantailler (above). Though he isn't adverse to choking a guy to unconsciousness with his knee.
- He did drug Jayne in "The Train Job" to prevent him from taking over the ship.
- Pretty much every fight in Firefly that isn't caused by alcohol is this trope.
Angel had a few of these, which is surprising considering that it's high fantasy, and the protagonist is nearly indestructible. Especially when considering how over the top it's parent show could be. Probably the best example would be Lindsey's hand. Lindey dangles a scroll that Angel desperately needs to save Cordelia over an open fire while goading Angel. So Angel cuts the guys hand off at the wrist then casually walks over and picks the scroll up.
- And, lets not forget Russel Winters,Lindsey: "So you kicked him out a window"
While in Professional Wrestling cheating to win a match usually makes you a bad guy, several noted wrestlers have gotten famous as nontraditional babyfaces who beat the heels through all manner of dirty tricks. The two most famous examples would probably be Eddie Guerrero, who would win matches by (among other things) throwing a chair to an opponent and flopping to the mat as though he had been hit and was one of the most beloved men in the industry despite having "I lie, I cheat, I steal" as his personal slogan, and the legendary Ric Flair, world renowned as "The Dirtiest Player in the Game" who would beat the opposition with eye gouges and the dreaded "testicular claw".
- Finlay, in his current WWE run, is a more recent example. To Finlay, every part of the ring is a weapon, including the apron (which he utilizes as a net to trap wrestlers trying daring-leap-to-the-outside or baseball-slide maneuvers). And, just in case things start really going south and he needs a real weapon, he always has his shillelagh waiting for him in the corner. And did we mention he's a Face?
An episode of Seinfeld has Jerry and George ask Elaine which of the two would win in a fight. Elaine says George, on the basis that he would fight dirty. George happily admits it, and Jerry happily accepts it. This is confirmed in a later episode where the three of them fight, and George does win.
Starbuck in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, particularly during the episode Scar, wherein Viper pilots are confronted with a deadly, newly-motivated enemy sortie, who utilises all sorts of tricks and decoys.
Starbuck: 'This isn't dueling pistols at dawn, this is war. You never wanna fight fair. You wanna sneak up behind your enemy, and club 'em over the head. You see, Scar understands that. And so do I. So, that's why I'm gonna kill him.'
- Of course, the most pragmatic thing Starbuck ends up doing in that fight is swallowing her pride and luring Scar into an ambush so that someone else can take the kill and get the glory.
- Colonel Tigh took this trope to a much wider field during the occupation of New Caprica. Suicide bombers, random violence — "I'm on the side of the demons."
24 Jack Bauer especially but also many of his opponents. He'll use sneak attacks and break bones, kick in kneecaps, and shoot to incapacitate or coerce. His fighting style is brutal with little or no flourish.
A producer's write-up on John Steed, to guide writers of episodes, specifically stated that "he fights like a cad and uses every dirty trick in the book..."
If you take out the wacky sound effect frames and just look at how Batman fights in the 60s TV show, you'll see that he gets fairly brutal. At one point, he rips a lead pipe off a wall and beats a mook with it.
Garak from Deep Space Nine. It's best summed up in this exchange.
Bashir: 'You'd shoot a man in the back?'
Garak: 'Well, it's the safest way to shoot a man.'
John Sheridan used a distress signal to lure a Minbari capital ship in an asteroid field mined with fusion bombs. Garibaldi put it best:
Garibaldi: "[...] Right now, according to his file, Sheridan is a good tactical thinker. He can take an inferior defensive force and turn it into an offensive force capable of taking on a better-equipped enemy. Now, he did it with the Black Star, he did it during the Mars riots. Now, you ask me, he is the one chance we've got to make it through this thing alive."
Cameron of The Sarah Connor Chronicles does not know of any other way to fight. For example, at one point she casually shoves another Terminator through a wall and blows its prone body apart with a grenade launcher. She also has no qualms with dropping a Terminator down an elevator shaft, and then dropping the elevator on said Terminator.

Ryuji Yamazaki from Fatal Fury stomps people when they are on the ground and kicks dirt in their faces.
A big part of Altaïr's fighting style in Assassin's Creed is his willingness to be a brutal combatant. Included in his many nasty killing animations is punching a mook in the face to spin him around and then stabbing him in the lower back, through the hip, and out his crotch. Another involves breaking an opponent's leg by kicking out a knee, and another has him kick them in the crotch, and as they drop to their knees, stabbing them in the top of their head with his short blade.
- Let's not forget his gruesome hidden blade counterattacks, which are so underhanded many players don't even realize they exist.
  - For said players, they involve things like lightning fast slashes to the throat (actually one of the bloodiest attacks in the game) and Altair jamming the blade practically wrist deep into the poor guard's eye socket.
- This seems to be something passed down from generation to generation. Ezio of the Renaissance fights even dirtier than Altair, aided by new weapons of the time period and some new skills (lacking his ancestor's Super Drowning Skills for one, allowing him to pull enemies into the water). He even learns to toss sand in enemies' eyes.
Kratos of God Of War is pretty damned brutal, willing to stab Cyclops' in the eye, slashing their knees to open them up for attack, slam and throw enemies around and even rip enemies apart with his bare hands. The final battle of the last game has him pulling off an I Surrender Suckers on Zeus, asking to be executed then quickly turning the tables on him via Action Commands. By the third game he's able to even use enemies as battering rams.
The introductory cinematic of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn has Sothe - resident Badass Normal, devoted Bodyguard Crush and famed Perpetual Frowner - appearing on the scene by cutting down an enemy soldier from the back, allowing Micaiah to blind the dozen or so enemies surrounding them with a spell so they can skedaddle. It's a lot more badass than it sounds.
- Micaiah gets another one later in the game, where she shows she is quite willing to resort to dirty tactics like pouring oil on her enemies and lighting them on fire when the situation calls for it. Granted, this little ploy doesn't work so well when the Hawk King decides to retaliate with his own dirty strategy.
The Amazon from the Nintendo game Pro Wrestling is notorious for this. Some of the moves he uses to fight the other wrestlers include biting them, choking them and stabbing them with a fork.
In what might be a Take That against protagonists such as Leon from Resident Evil 4, Isaac from Dead Space wouldn't know "finesse" if it tried to claw his face off. Everything from frenzied curb stomping to strangulation while beating his victim around the head with a gun, the man can and WILL take any advantage offered in melee.
- Isaac is less about brutality than panic-flailing. He is understandably freaked the fuck out by what's going on, and when attacked, he flails, panics, then gets a temporary advantage and freaks out, killing his opponent.
Pokemon is filled with some seriously dirty attacks. One of the first attacks you encountered in Red/Blue was Sand Attack, which is kicking/blowing sand in the opponent's face to reduce their accuracy. The second game adds Mud Slap, which uses mud (and actually does damage, too), and Pursuit, which strikes a Pokemon as it's being switched out. In fact, the "Dark" type combines not only obviously Darkness Elemental attacks, but also a lot of "dirty trick" attacks which invariably involve underhanded tactics or maneuvers, like Fake Tears, Bite, Torment, and Faint Attack.
- Don't forget the dirtiest Dark-type attack of them all, Beat Up, which works by having all the other Pokémon in the party gang up on the opponent. It's not called the Aku ("evil") type in Japanese for nothing.
  - As mentioned in the Pokemon page, Croagunk and Toxicroak are like this, and learn a lot of dark attacks. However, it's for survival, and some of those species are said to be laid back and I dunno... good? I suppose that comes from being Fighting type though, most of them are honourable.
The Punisher game has this as a feature. If the player runs into an enemy, there are many choices. Hold him hostage, interrogate him, knock him out, shoot him in the head or just outright drive a k-bar into his brain. One of the many twists is the Punisher distracts the enemy by handing over his own gun, then it's knife-face time.
There's not a lot in Dead Rising that can't be picked up and used to bash/slice/(appropriate destructive verb here) zombie heads in. Even CD cases, squeaky hammers, and entire mannequins.
- I am now giggling wildly at the thought of the undead being defeated by a child's noisy toy. "Braaains" (squeek!)
If you have inhuman strength in most games, that means you will use some kind of sword or other weapon. Of course, if you dont think about using a massive Gatling gun meant to be used in combat planes.
- Considering who he's fighting, he might have handicapped himself by bringing only one tank to that earlier fight in the minefield.
  - Then again, getting past the tank was all part of Liquid's plan. This was before the sequels turned into a Thirty Xanatos Pileup, so I could still tell who was doing what and for what reason.
- More importantly, Solid Snake and Big Boss themselves. The whole gameplay in the series is based around fighting dirty, from holding an enemy hostage in a firefight, knocking them out with sleeping gas to distracting them by leaving porn mags lying around. This how ever does not stop Big Boss from claiming:
  I'm no assassin. Shooting a soldier with their guard down isn't my style.
Sword Of The Stars has the Tarka, whose concept of "honor in battle" involves walking away with as few casualties as possible while leaving their enemies dead. Consequently they can and will employ almost any dirty trick in the book for an advantage; their favourite techs in-game are mines and torpedoes, and the game's novel has a Tarka commander betraying her own allies during a fight so that the telepaths they're fighting will be unable to learn her real battleplan from them — a battleplan that involves basically gift-wrapping the main character and handing him over to them on a silver platter so she can sneak up and stab them in their backs while they're preoccupied with... "processing" him.
In many RTS games, it is pretty much expected that players will fight dirty, and such games are designed accordingly.
The Elites in Halo come off as a rather brutal example. They are proud warrior-race guys who have no problem with turning invisible in the middle of a fight. They may take pride in combat, but that doesn't mean they're stupid when it comes to that combat.
While most of the boxers of Punch Out have rather unconventional movesets, to put it mildly there are characters who use Martial Arts alongside boxing (Dragon Chan) as well as weapons (Hoy Quarlow). Aran Ryan in the Wii version however is the biggest example, using elbow strikes, head butts, putting horseshoes inside his gloves and later on using a boxing glove whip against you that lets him get a free hit in upon knocking him out.
It's hard to get more pragmatic than Alex Mercer. Anything that isn't nailed down or on fire can be thrown at enemies, any civilians unlucky enough to be within range of his wild flailing get torn to shreds, and he heals himself by eating anyone still standing.
In World of Warcraft Rogues are one of the dirtiest fighters in the game. They can become invisible in combat (Vanish), they have several abilities that incapacitate opponents, such as Blind, Kidney Shot, Backstab, Ambush, Cheap Shot, Garrote, and poisons on their weapons.
- It doesn't help that players behind the class are fond of attacking you while you're low on health or already engaged in combat, further capitalising on their advantage.
Danpierre from Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny loves to fight dirty. Along with his pair of hidden-below-the-forearm blades, he will also throw sucker punches during throws, and even fake injury right before springing up and attacking again.
In Spelunky, one of the protagonist's main abilities is the ability to pick up and throw anything. Priceless golden idols, enemy corpses, Distressed Damsels, you name it, he can throw it. Damsels can also be used for a host of things besides the reward you get for rescuing them, including the infamous "damsel bomb" trick. Other pragmatic tricks include getting a Ballistic Discount at a shop, and luring enemies into the vicious Death Traps meant for you.
Some of Batman's moves in Batman Arkham Asylum easily qualify for this trope. One of his delicate ways of saying 'stay down' is to wrench someone's lower leg by ninety degrees to the sound of breaking bones. That's gotta hurt.
The salarians in Mass Effect always start their wars with no warning, either hitting an enemy pre-emptively or assaulting their targets out of the blue. The Codex entry for their military doctrine even explicitly states that they view the concept of warning your enemy you're about to attack by declaring war is insane and stupid.
- Shepard him/herself - a Renegade can sometimes punch/shoot potential problems through dialogue options.
Okay World Of Warcraft Pv P players, raise your hand if you've come across someone of the opposite faction battling with something, waited until their health was low, then attacked for the honor points. Rogues need not reply, assuming you haven't already stealthed and snuck up behind me.
- Many attack for the lulz or factional pride, but it's much the same.

Lukas the Trickster in Warhammer40000 is the dirtiest fighter in the Space Wolves Chapter, making him the dirtiest fighter in an army of dirty fighters. Making him the dirtiest fighter in the Imperium, easily. He went so far to win a fight through trickery, he had one of his hearts replaced with a bomb, just to make sure he takes the other guy out with him.
- And said bomb is a stasis grenade that traps those caught in the blast in a stasis field, where they can only hear Lukas' laughter for the rest of eternity.
Too many Dungeons And Dragons classes to name. The rogue's "Sneak Attack" ability is probably the most prominent example; dealing extra damage by specifically striking vulnerable parts of the body. The Sandstorm expansion in 3.5 includes mechanics for blinding opponents with sand. If this troper remembers correctly, Stormwrack includes mechanics for holding opponents underwater until they drown.
- The Drunken Master, a drunken-boxing prestige class for the (martial artist) monk, gains proficiency with improvised weapons. Depending on how good you are at getting crap past the DM, a Drunken Master can use Flurry of Blows with anything he damn well feels like. "Want to see what else I can do with furniture?"

In Girl Genius the end of Agatha and Othar's little talk she pushes him over the side of an airship.
in The Order Of The Stick, Haley has no problem fighting very dirty. For example, she ambushed Crystal as she was in the shower, catching her without her weapons, armor, and protective jewelry, and killed her while she was stunned on the floor. It might be argued that this is dishonorable, but aside from that being the whole point, Haley is Chaotic Good, not Chaotic Stupid.
- Who could forget her approach to the test of the mind? Or, for that matter, the return trip?
- Considering Haley's class and the above commentary on D&D rogues, this is justified.
- Belkar also fits into this category, being quite willing to fight sneakily with a paladin and either taking potshots or using traps against her.
  - When he knocked said paladin unconscious, however, he actually waited until she woke up again instead of simply killing her. He even let her believe that she had merely become dizzy for a few seconds. He did steal and drink her healing potions while he had the chance, however.
  - For Belkar, this was less about being honorable and more about pissing her off. Obviously, he can't annoy her if she's out cold. Not to mention that his plan had been to let her kill him so that she lost her Paladin powers, while he could always get resurrected later.
  - In addition, when Belkar was confronted with the son of a Kobold he had killed, who was in full revenge mode, he was unable to kill him due to his Mark of Justice. So does he accept his fate? Hell no! He simply hires mercenaries mid-fight to slay him.
Belkar: "50 gp bonus to whoever makes him scream the loudest!"
Tagon, from Schlock Mercenary. His first pugil-stick practice with Schlock involved slicing Schlock, and his pugil stick, in half with a concealed Razor Floss wire hidden in his shoes. Don't worry, Schlock can survive that sort of thing.. His second, against the neophant Chisulo, involved lobbing the pugil stick into his opponent's eye from across the ring. The Seven Habits of Very Effective Pirates deals heavily in this trope; rule 31 even explicitly states "Only cheaters prosper".
Chisulo: I'm pretty sure that's cheating.
Tagon: I'm sorry, did you just say, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"
Chisulo: Thank you sir! Point...um...taken.
Bun-Bun from Sluggy Freelance just plain loves this trope. Some examples:
TFA Prowl in the Insecticomics teaches his class to use any available item as a weapon. When Laserbeak tries to call him on this, he kicks her aft with a sandwich.
Mr. Raven from El Goonish Shive
Wizard: Have you no honor?
Raven: The lives of my students are more important.
Karcharoth and Fenrir of Cry Havoc do whatever they think they need to in order to survive and win.

Sensei Ito, one of the martial arts instructors at Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe, has created an entire fighting style around this. He's a little old man with no mutant powers, and he can take down flying bricks, avatars, you name it. He's fighting (and training) mutants, so you know he isn't going to fight fair.
- One should note, of course, that some folks - including Ayla - doubt that Ito is actually just a Badass Normal. One of the prevailing theories is that he's also either a secret mutant, or very experienced at Ki manipulation. Odds are weighted towards the Ki manipulation.
- And don't forget Eric Mahren, before his emergence as a mutant. As one of the range instructors, he's the one who okays or used to what is and is not allowed to be used on the range. And he is a Badass Normal, and is more than capable of defending himself against most of the students at Whateley - even the ones who think it's funny to sneak up behind people and stab them in the kidneys.
In The Salvation War, the demons accuse the humans of fighting dishonorably by using long-ranged artillery, airstrikes, tanks, and long-range rifles rather than fight the demons in hand-to-hand combat. Or at least, the demons try to, but the humans are too busy slaughtering their Bronze-Age armies wholesale to listen.
Sup guy extraordinaire Johnny Rocketfingers.

Terry McGinnis in Batman Beyond is quite fond of fighting dirty. In Terry's case, it actually gets noted in The Movie, where the Joker points out that the real Batman would never fight that way. To which Terry's response is that he's not the same Batman, which he then uses to make a couple other points in an epic verbal beatdown.
- It was even a Ironic Echo because Joker had made it a point to let Terry know he didn't consider Terry the real Batman.
  - Of course, it just led to the Joker introducing HAND GRENADES to their fight, so yeah...
  - And then Terry uses the Joker's own joybuzzer on him to short out the microchip, so it all balances out.
In one of their encounters in GI Joe, Snake Eyes defeated Storm Shadow by pulling the pins off the grenades he was wearing across his chest.
In Avatar The Last Airbender, the protagonists, while not going deliberately for dirty tactics, are certainly pragmatic enough to know not to announce their presence to their enemies before attacking them in the back. One episode has Sokka be praised by his momentary swordfighting teacher for his resourcefulness (e.g. taking advangtage of his greater agility than an older person, attacking from higher ground, pulling bamboo shoots so they'll fly back and distract his opponent, throwing sand in his eyes).
- As for the antagonists... Anti Villain Prince Zuko considers fighting to be a matter of honor. Magnificent Bitch Princess Azula gleefully pulls the I Surrender Suckers, ambushes, traps, and in one truly magnificent example actually shot the Avatar in the back during his Transformation Sequence, violating all known anime etiquette. Bonus points for still being a formidable enough fighter that she actually can defeat her opponents straight-up, she just doesn't always bother.
Megatron gave a perfect example of this in the Transformers Generation 1 episode "Heavy Metal War" during an "honorable" one-on-one match with Optimus to decide the end of their war. Not only did he create a machine that allows him to take on the abilities of all his soldiers (despite rules that prevent him from doing so for the match, which Starscream ironically points out), but he also sends some of his troops out to trash the Autobots' base computer Teletraan 1 to prevent it from warning the Autobots of Megatron's duplicity.
Rattrap from Transformers: Beast Wars.
Rattrap: You fight with a rat... (kicks sand into Waspinator's eyes) ...you better fight dirty.
- How the hell does sand in the eyes affect a robot?
  - Ever gotten grit on your camera?
  - Yeah. Wanna make something out of it?
  - He also knees Waspinator square in the gearbox.
Of the three main characters in The Boondocks, Riley is much more resourceful than his brother and granddad. Sure he lacks his brother's kung fu or his granddad's belt proficiency, but he will use every tool at his disposal to win a fight.
An early episode of The Simpsons has Bart trying to do this to Nelson, throwing mud in his face before attacking him. It doesn't work.
Sasha of Titan Maximum has basically one attack in her arsenal: the Groin Attack. It's not so effective against the giant monsters the titular robot fights, but it's very effective against the mostly male members of Titan's Engineering Core. Palmer also goes for the groin a lot, but uses other attacks, too. Finally, even Jodi, normally quite the fair fighter, gets in on the action in the season finale when having trouble beating the superhuman assassin Claire.
The karate instructor in this RobotChicken sketch

Major William E. Fairbairn. Taught, among other things, sentry elimination to comandos. See the quotes page.
Miyamoto Musashi. Musashi probably would have used a gun if he had one available and the other guy didn't. "Fight FAIR!" is never really emphasized in his book.
- You say he'd have been willing to use a gun as though it were surprising. History shows that Samurai generally were pretty pragmatic on this and many other points.
- He killed people in sword duels. Other traditional samurai weapons like spears, naginata, longbows, armies of particularly disgruntled and dishonorable peasants, rifles and ninja weren't really appropriate. People ended up dead because he was incredibly Badass.
  - Read his book. Any weapon was appropriate; being limited to swords is the only thing that wasn't. "Bows, guns [they did have them then], spears and halberds are all warriors' equipment." Specifically, "from inside fortifications, the gun has no equal among weapons. It is the supreme weapon on the field before the ranks clash, but once swords are crossed the gun becomes useless." They weren't very good at that time.
  - You hear about how Musashi deliberately showed up late to his duel with Kojir? in order to psychologically unnerve him? People are still debating whether or not, in doing so, Musashi "cheated."
Believe it or not: Bruce Lee. His personally-developed fighting-style, Jeet Kune Do, is based on the philosophy of doing 'whatever it takes' to win. In one memorable case, during a sparring-match, he was pinned by a fellow martial artist - a practitioner of Brazilian Ju-Jitsu, if memory serves - who asked what he'd do if this was a real fight. He responded, "Bite you, of course." Basically, he acknowledges that, if you're fighting for real, you use everything at your disposal, including crotch kicks, eye-gouges, hair-pulling and biting. Of course, he was also perfectly capable of fighting 'by the rules' for martial-arts tournaments and movies, but that's another matter.
- There exist numerous martial arts systems in real life based on similar precepts - MCMAP (developed for the Marines), Krav Maga (Israeli Mossad), Systema (KGB), and Kajukenbo for some examples. Even Karate - hardly a new martial art - includes eye-gouging, a multitude of groin attacks, ear rips (it's as painful as it sounds) and even pinching the inner thigh.
- Ninjutsu is a lot like this. For all the talk of ninjas, it's often forgotten that ninjutsu means not being seen, and, if you are seen, coming up with a way to get away quickly. There's a lot of emphasis on blinding one's opponent.
  - Also completely inverted by police and (to a lesser extent) military combat programmes, where your own survival is not the priority and therefore dirty fighting is usually discarded (it's more useful for staying alive than "honourable" fighting, but improvisation is generally less effective at hurting or subduing the enemy).
  - This appears to be a Cyclic Trope. During dangerous times fighters develop brutally effective fighting styles, then peaceful times come. During peaceful times the fighting styles start to become more showy and flashy, more to make an artful scene than to harm an opponent. Dangerous times return and new fighters develop new styles by taking the old styles and cutting-out all the Kruft.
A longtime boxing legend was that Mickey Walker, a champion at welterweight and middleweight, pulled this on Harry Greb, a middleweight champion many experts pick as one of history's greatest boxers. After losing to Greb in a championship bout, the two bumped into each other later in a bar. They drank together for awhile until Walker made some comments about Greb's dirty and unsportsmanlike conduct in the ring, which Greb countered by offering to fight for real outside. The original story goes that while the two were standing in the street Walker waited until Greb was tied up in taking off his jacket and vest, and then hit Greb with a monster shot while Greb was constrained. This version of events was repeated for a long time, until about 30 years later Walker, then a painter long since retired from the sport, admitted that it was a wild exaggeration of events, and the fight was stopped before it started when a bystander separated the two.
In a Pankration Tournament, Frank Shamrock was fighting Bas Rutten. In that tournament, anyone hitting their opponet in the face was docked points. Frank's answer in a hold he couldn't escape? Keep making faces at Bas until Bas couldn't resist anymore and hits him.
- Bas himself knows a thing (or twenty) about fighting dirty.
George Washington was a warfare Pragmatist. Launching a major attack on Christmas is only his most infamous act of dishonorable warfare. Many historians have attributed the American victory to this.
Sun Tzu, a general during the Warring States period in China, not only was a warfare pragmatist to put others to shame, but quite literally wrote the book on it. It's worth noting that the same book, The Art of War, is STILL used to teach tactics and strategy (fighting dirty on army scale) to this day.
The North Vietnameese also took advantage of a day that was a holiday when they launched the Tet Offensive on January 30th, 1968. That was Tet, the first day of the New Year, probably the most important holiday of the Vietnamese calendar. On top of that, they had previously announced that they would honor a two-day ceasefire to allow the celebration of the holiday. Given the scope of the attack, they never had any intention of honoring that ceasefire.
- And of course, the point of the attack in the first place wasn't to gain any key positions, it was meant to fail horribly so that the media would send it to America to foster dislike for the war back home, to hopefully get America to withdraw. Underhanded, indeed.
Egypt attacking during the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Not only was it a religious holiday for Jews, it was also during Ramadhan - the Muslim fasting month where war is supposed to be ceased. Arabs know it as the Ramadhan War btw.
- Not to mention that during Yom Kippur it is traditional to fast from sundown of the previous evening to the next sundown—so not only were they praying, they were also underfed.
- It's generally agreed that this actually backfired on the Egyptians: Attacking on a day when everyone was easily reachable, when the roads were empty (Yom Kippur is the one day in the year when even secular Israelies avoid driving) meant that mobilisation of the reserves was very quick. Had the Egyptians attacked on, say, Passover, when everyone's either abroad on holiday or stuck in taffic-jams, the result would've been more to their advantage...
Then there are the Very-Not-Combat sports which almost anything is done when the ref isn't looking. Water polo gets really bad as half the game is just acting—you "draw a foul" and "draw an ejection" even when you weren't being hurt, and if you *are* getting hurt the ref probably won't call it because that would be "rewarding" you for not being able to play. At least, that's what the refs from California and Canada do.
To quote a Karate instructor: "No, we don't practice roundhouse kicks as defense. We do them so we can learn how to respond to them if someone does it to you, but as actual self-defense? Would you punch someone in the foot? Sounds silly, doesn't it? So why would you kick someone in the face? Just punch them in the face, your hands are closer."
- In tae kwon do, there are many kicks, but when one actually spars, most of the fancier kicks are left alone. In fact, most of the kicks would be simply to get the opponent to move farther away when they're close enough to punch you so that you can punch them instead. Punches to the head are considered illegal moves in tournament sparring, but in normal sparring, they are better because it's harder to block punches to the head.
The reason for the crushing defeat of the French by the English during The Battle of Crécy.
- Well, one of them anyway. The main one was that the French knights were too gung-ho for their own good, and started the battle before their army was anywhere near ready.
- Various battles of the Hundred Years War, particularly Agincourt, have earned this reputation for the English. The French expected a civilized battle with knights on horseback and everything, and the English just shot a lot of arrows at them. Whether that's the reality or not, the reputation still stands.
Richard Marcinko, U.S Navy SEAL. He wrote in his book Rogue Warrior how he was sitting in the Pentagon during the 1980 failed attempt to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran. Everything went wrong, including a bus full of Iranian civilians accidentally showing up at the landing zone. When the men at the landing zone asked what to do about the civilians, Marchinko said, "Kill them". He got some strange looks for that from his fellow soldiers. Needless to say, they weren't killed.
Fencing. Yes, fencing. The 'honorable' stuff on a strip with handshakes and salutes is a sport. Its origin is amongst highwaymen and cutthroats who used grabs, pulls, concealed weapons, kicks, and the like to win. Even historical fencing is a cleaned-up game.
- Fencing masters of the time emphasize there's nothing dishonorable in running away from multiple opponents, advise on kicks to the balls, and begin lectures on grappling by "break his arm and proceed to grappling".
  - Classically, fencing was so heavily oriented toward dirty fighting, that it was considered taboo in polite society to seek lessons. Doing so was considered an admission that you were up to no good. Matters eventually reached the point that complimenting a social rival's fencing skill was a dire insult, as you'd basically just called him a dirty, underhanded scoundrel.
The Marine Corps Martial Arts Program, aka how to kill anything with anything: the short course.
Certain types of Combat Pragmatism are illegal by the laws of warfare, not the least of which is not wearing an identifiable uniform. You break the rules, you lose their protection, such as eligibility for Geneva Convention rights.
Despite all the hubbub about honor and glory in war, the point in all warfare is to make it unfair to your side's advantage. Yes, there are rules and there standards of honor (or, more accurately, professionalism) that are followed, but even when these are not ignored and the broad rules of warfare are followed, the overall point is to still make things unfair to your advantage. A fair fight just means you give more chances for your enemy to hurt or kill you.

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