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alt title(s): Take A Level In Badass 
"Well...the heavenly light emanating from your glorious reincarnated form is something of a clue...."
"Danny-boy, you've changed considerably...into a badass, if I may!"
"Why aren't you a joke anymore?"
— Spider Man, The Amazing Spider-Man, about Hammerhead through a dislocated jaw.
So you’re flipping channels looking for something to watch and you come across a battle scene in a familiar show. One character in particular is making a very good showing, doing at least as much as the main character to save the day. But who is this mysterious Badass Longcoat? Did you miss the episode where they were introduced? Why the nagging feeling of familiarity? And then it hits — you know this guy. It's just that last time you saw him, he was a nebbishy wisecracker with the constitution of a glass-jawed squirrel. What happened to transform him so completely? Simple: last time he leveled up, he Took A Level In Badass.
The phenomenon is the opposite of Badass Decay, and frequently just as unjustified. In some particularly egregious examples, a character’s personality does a complete 180 in a single episode. Instead of being the meek and intelligent person they once were, they may turn into an arrogant Jerk Ass because of their recent leveling.
On the plus side, it can be the capper to an entire series worth of Character Development, and, if well-done, can make even The Wesley into an interesting part of the show.
If the change is a result of a Face Heel Turn, see Superpowered Evil Side and Good Is Dumb. If it's a result of a Heel Face Turn, then it's a case of Evil Is Dumb. If the change is due to time travel, see Future Badass. If it is the result of finding a powerful object, see Amulet Of Concentrated Awesome.
There is also the Super Hero Origin, where the first story gives some explanation for why they became the badass hero.
The reference comes from roleplaying, where it's sometimes possible to "take a level" in a completely different class. For instance: a level ten Fighter could take a level in Wizard, therefore being both a level ten Fighter and a level one Wizard.
Contrast Obfuscating Stupidity, Lets Get Dangerous, Cowardly Lion, and Not So Harmless, where actually competent characters who have been hiding their powers finally reveal their abilities.
Compare Badass Abnormal, which gives the character ten levels in "badass", even if they're already a Badass Normal (used often in Fan Fiction to make that character the 'ultimate badass').
See also: Dumbass No More, and its opposite Took A Level In Dumbass.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
Fan Fic
- Shinji and Warhammer40K proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that anyone, even the king of all spineless wimps, can be made into pure, undiluted radioactive awesome by applying Warhammer 40 K to him. Not only Shinji, but everyone who associates with him takes multiple levels in Badass and Crazy Awesome over the course of this fic. See the fic's trope page for more details.
- Where there's
smoke Shinji And Warhammer 40 K, they pitch back Thousand Shinji. Shinji + Thousand Sons sorcerer's training = Awesome heroic-equivalent-of-the-Magnificent Bastard Psyker. Who then makes the others level up.
- Tiberium Wars has Sandra Telfair, an intelligence analyst who has never seen combat before, plausibly take at least one level in badass. At first, she ends up getting caught in a Nod ambush, disoriented, and surrenders to the Black Hand without a fight. Then, after a Nod soldier tries to rape her, she manages to cut a guard's throat using a torn soda can, shoot several more guards, and destroy blind a Black Hand while escaping. However, the experience itself affected her pretty hard, and in the latter sequence she's mostly running on adrenaline and sheer terror.
Comic Books
- Just about every single character who comes into contact with some kind of weird Green Rocks that give them superpowers.
- Joke character Hammerhead from Spider-Man got this treatment, as part of becoming The Dragon for Big Bad Mr. Negative. He got a reinforced skeleton (made out of canonical Nightmare Fuel) and strength and durability upgrades. The very first thing he does is utterly stomp Spidey. As Peter is lying on the floor with a gorram dislocated jaw, he says "Why aren't you a joke anymore?"
- KEVLAR. THROAT.
- Oh, and I forgot. He now has his real memory of being a Russian. So now he's a near-invulnerable Russian hitman with a skeleton that looks a lot like the Terminators. Pleasant dreams.
- Grunge of the newly rebooted Gen 13 series is a slightly different example. He starts out as your more than average nerd with genius IQ and photographic memory. And the first name... Percy. So he starts working out, hides his book smarts and his photographic memory, starts using his middle name, trains in martial arts and starts skateboarding. And turns into a stereotypical 'stupid' musclebound frat boy slacker by the start of the series when we first see him. And then he gets superpowers.
- Storm from X-Men is an interesting example; she started off as a fairly strong Claremont Woman, but a bit unsure of herself. After some time with the team and a radical makeover in Japan, however, she became less an African Yamato Nadeshiko and more of an ethnic Action Girl. She still used Spock Speak, however, and continues to do so to this day.
- Kitty Pryde. Hints of her ability were dropped from day one, but few who read her of late would
believe the Genki Teen Genius Tagalong Kid of a Distressed Damsel she once was... scratch that, the Character Development was well done enough that she remains wholly recognisable.
- On the subject of the X-Men, Cyclops has gone from the buzz-kill tightass leader to a badass strategist.
- ...Cyclops has been a badass strategist since at least 1979.
- But after Jean's death he started to act like a one. People jokes that Emma made his cohones regows. On the other hand, sometimes he's acting like they regrow too big and taked control over his mind. So the X-men are currently under leadership of giaint cohones.
- In the Sonic The Hedgehog comic book, Evil Sonic, Sonic's Evil Twin (duh), is nothing more than a minor pest, at best. He spends his time either playing underling for more powerful villains, or behaving like a glorified thug. However, when the new writer comes into the comic, Evil Sonic gets jacked up on chaos energy, gets a makeover, changes his name to "Scourge", and proceeds to kick his threat level up a notch. It doesn't stop there, however - after a few "inspiring" words from Sonic, he returns to his home dimension, applies himself, and conquers his own version of "Moebius" in a matter of DAYS.
- Yorick in Y: The Last Man starts as an inept loser who's often beaten up by women (including his sister) but with the help of some traumatic incidents, and training by Agent 355, becomes more adept at defending himself. Subverted also in one scene when a non-action character suddenly whips out a sword in an apparent elevation to Badass, only to be easily defeated by the more experienced villain.
- Lawrence Dobson from Firefly received a Level of Badass in the Serenity comic books.
- In the Villains United and Secret Six comics, former Batman whipping boy Catman has graduated to a capable threat, fighting the Caped Crusader to a standstill in one issue.
- In the first issue of G.I. Joe: Cobra, we watch Chuckles gain Badass XP in a training sequence with Jinx.
- In the Marvel Universe, Anthony Davis was a second-rate C List Fodder supervillain known as the Ringer, who was humiliated by SpiderMan before being unceremoniously murdered along with 17 other supervillains by the villain-killing Scourge. A later retcon would reveal that Davis was Not Quite Dead when he was found by a group of agents from the technological terrorist group A.I.M., who were investigating the site of the massacre to steal the technology of the dead villains. He Got Better when A.I.M. turned him into a cyborg with advanced laser weapons and teleportation powers. Now calling himself Strikeback, Davis proved to be a much better fighter than he ever was as the Ringer, defeating the Vulture, Stegron, Boomerang and Swarm one after another when he reappeared in the SpiderMan comics.
- Speeching of C list Fodder, Nova, was a rather minor character and founding member of the New Warroirs, during the annihilation event whihc he was the main character, he got a power upgrade and ripped the Big Bad Annihilus who also took a level in bad ass, guts threw his mounth and got his own solo
- The first volume of French comic Dungeon pretty much revolves around initially helpless and cowardly lead character Herbert the Duck Taking A Level In Badass over and over again. By the end, he has a magic sword he's one Great Deed away from being able to wield, that, if touched by another, will turn him into one of its previous bearers to defend itself — unfortunately, not all of them are awesome, and it can be exploited by forcing him to cycle through forms too quickly to actually react — can't be killed by normal means because his heart was first removed, then eaten by a Bewmew — granting it a soul, and the now-sapient... blob-thingy now acts as his loyal servant and bodyguard in thanks — and is a master of the stick and the feather — since he's a duck and covered with feathers, this means he can dismember and eviscerate opponents completely unarmed.
Film
- Pasha Antipov, a minor character in Doctor Zhivago, begins the movie as an utter wimp. He's a cuckold, a bespectacled naif, and an ineffective revolutionary. Even his name is a bit puny. But then he's hit by a bomb on the Eastern Front and drops out of the movie—only to return in an impossibly cool scene as the enigmatic "General Strelnikov," a Badass Longcoat with his own armored train.
- In the book , it's Red Commander, not General. The Reds did not use officer and general ranks until WWII.
- In the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie, delicate but spirited Damsel in Distress Elizabeth Swann has become a quite competent sword-wielding Action Girl. This is handwaved in a throwaway line: her fiance Will Turner, the best swordsman in the series, has been teaching her for the past year. Then again, she is hanging around with pirates...
- Even more so when she becomes the captain of a ship, escapes from Davy Jones, and then becomes the Pirate King... or Queen, in this case.
- One of the most jarring examples would be Sarah Connor's transformation between the first two Terminator movies: She (the actress) was a normal, happy looking girl in the first one, but looks like she lost about thirty pounds of body fat and transformed the rest into solid muscle by the second one, as well as going from Damsel In Distress to Psycho Action Girl. Of course, a decade of preparing for The End Of The World As We Know It will do that to a person.
- In this editor's opinion Sarah actually starts levelling in badass in the first movie from the moment Reese compliments her how skillfully she patched up his wound onward.
- This editor usually sees the first movie's line, "On your feet, soldier!" to Reese as he tells her to go on without him as the moment she leveled up.
- This editor remembers reading how in real life Linda Hamilton, at the time director James Cameron's wife, was encouraged by him to take steroids and an insane training and workout regimen to prepare for Terminator II—resulting in the inevitable loss of body fat, extra muscle, emotional instability and irrationality, 'roid rage', and the eventual break-up of their marriage. Of course, steroids will do that to a person. James Cameron, ladies and gentlemen, not a dick at all...
- Another alarming one was Straw Dogs, in which Dustin Hoffman starts out as, well, Dustin Hoffman, in the role of a mathematician. As the local louts gradually cause him more and more grief, however, he goes a bit mad, and ends up brutally murdering them all when they try to break into his house.
- Galaxy Quest: "By Grabthar's hammer, you shall be avenged!" is a level-up moment if there's ever been one.
- As a general rule, the less someone did this in The Descent, the faster she died.
- River Tam, though she had her Crowning Moments of Awesome during the Firefly series, levels up in a big way during Serenity when her deadly martial arts killing machine programming is activated at the Maidenhead bar. She eventually goes on to wipe out a whole mess of Reavers in order to save the crew of the titular ship.
- In Feast, when all the hero types are dead and hope is lost, the mother who lost her son (Tuffy) "levels up" and becomes Heroine 2. Then she proceeds to punch all the monsters teeth out with the butt of her gun and punch its stomach through the mouth, choking it to death. Crowning Moments of Awesome? Yes, you could say that.
- Captain Sulu's 10 level Bad Ass upgrade is completed with the final battle in Star Trek VI. At the end of the movie he's reached full Bad Ass status.
- Star Wars: Luke Skywalker may have set the record for most levels in Bad Ass taken up in a single trilogy. He's a whiny teenager who complains about having to clean droids in the first movie and becomes the man who nukes two Death Stars, amputates a number of bad guys, gives the Emperor the finger, and even brings his dad back to the Light.
- Hey, credit where credit is due. Wedge and Lando took out the second Death Star.
- Don't forget, they had help—and the effort devastated the Alliance fleet badly enough that it took several years (EU) to be able to make a push at Coruscant.
- Can a Cool Ship Take A Level In Bad Ass? If so, the Millenium Falcon counts. A dingy rustbucket only good for outrunning Star Destroyers at first, it actually vaporizes the Second Death Star from the inside out in the third movie.
- Any ship that much smaller ought to run from a Star Destroyer. As shown in the attack on the second Death Star, when acting as a warship the Falcon is possibly no more than a very large, fast, and heavily armed fighter.
- Considering the previous statement, the Millennium Falcon did all its leveling offscreen. It's a transport ship. Being as large as it is, modified with the power weapons, and still usable as an extremely fast fighter gives much credit to its pilot and modder (whether they be the same purpose). So while this troper believes Cool Ships can take levels in badass, the Falcon doesn't count (Though it is, intentionally according to Han in Episode IV, a Crouching Rustbucket Hidden Badass).
- If you look at the stats for the Falcon in the RPG handbook, you can see that compared to the standard freighter it started out as, it is a Super Bad Ass.
- Sgt. Powell in the first Die Hard. Munching donuts and relegated to desk duty in the beginning his gets a huge Crowning Moment Of Awesome at the end when he shoots the final bad guy dead in the face complete with the Rousing Music playing in the background
- Of all the people in the Cinderella Disney movies, The Prince is the one who takes several levels in badass in the third movie. Seriously, after being among the most... "plain" (to say it kindly) of the Disney male leads, he rides on his horse frantically to catch Cindy just in time before she's Put On a Boat and jumps on the sails when it seems he won't reach her... WOW. Impressive, to say it at least.
- "Groovy."
- Done to Abe Sapien between Hellboy I and II. He goes from the geeky, psychic Non Action Guy to someone that carries a gun and has enough martial arts ability to at least evade and stall a troll three times his size, if not actually damaging it. Still geeky and psychic, but a bit more power behind it.
- Done in Paul Blart: Mall Cop where Paul initially manages to defeat the Le Parkour Totally Radical mall robbers through large amounts of dumb luck, upon learning that his daughter is amongst the hostages he takes a massive level in badass, setting up a fair amount of traps and managing to stealthily take out the remaining goons with a combination of disguises and using his location (IE getting them to come to the Rainforest Cafe and hiding amongst the animatronics).
- Johnny 5 went this way in Short Circuit 2. After being nearly destroyed, he rebuilds himself as a crazy-ass punker robot and goes on a rampage.
- Between the second and third Back To The Future films, Doc Brown (of all characters) takes a level in badass. The third film sees him toting a big bad rifle, saving (and subsequently wooing) a damsel in distress, standing up to the local gunslinger, hijacking a train and driving it off a cliff.
- While we're on Back To The Future, let's look at George McFly. With an assist in the past from his as-yet-unborn child, he goes from a mousy, cowardly junior-level worker to a highly successful writer... and along the way, Mrs. McFly gets a little spillover badassery (or at least some weight loss and athletic skills).
- Kadaj from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children can teach a class on taking levels in badass after literally becoming Sephiroth in the blink of an eye.
- Jason Tripitikas takes several levels in badass in the movie Forbidden Kingdom after he trained with Lu Yan and the Silent Monk. It isn't enough for him to take on the Dragon (Ni Chang), but it's still a vast improvement. Then again, it's Jackie Chan (Lu Yan) and Jet Li (Silent Monk), the two of them combined could grant a 90 year-old grandmother several levels in badass.
- In Moonwalker, Michael Jackson mostly does shit like running through a field of flowers with some children. However, at one point, he takes a level in badass by grabbing a Tommygun and mowing down a bunch of ghetto stormtroopers. Toward the end, he takes another level in badass and turns into a giant fucking robot and blows the shit out of a bad guy's evil lair.
- Several characters in the latest Star Trek movie have apparently taken retroactive levels in Badass: notably Sulu, who is now pretty decent in combat, and Uhura, who is now demonstrating exactly what a 'communications officer' is good for.
- In Up, Carl Fredericksen is a 78-years grumpy, sour, etc... old man who is completely obsessed by his house, which he considers as the last remnant of his late wife, who he feels he "betrayed". He even goes as far as to let the Big Bad capture a rare bird he earlier swore to protect to save the same house (and gets a "What The Hell Hero"). But when a Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming makes him realize at last that the house is nothing but a house, that his memories are what are keeping his wife alive within him, and that he never "betrayed" her, he immediately goes from old grumpy selfish almost-Jerkass to happy and brave Badass Grandpa, recovers the energy and strength of his youth, and sacrifices the remnants of his house to be able to go and save the bird. Never underestimate The Power Of Love!
- The character of Hudson in Aliens goes from whiny soldier to Level A Badass with a moment of You Shall Not Pass.
- Optimus Prime in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The original didn't really do him justice, but his latest appearance shows him for what he truly is. Pure. High-Octane. Badass.
Literature
- Neville Longbottom of Harry Potter, previously a bit of a Butt Monkey, gets some character development in Book 4, then actually starts showing some competence in Book 5. This pays off in Book 7; the Power Trio misses out on what he's up to for much of the year, but when they see him again, he's clearly leveled up in Harry's absence and has become a leader in his own right. He's a key player in the final battle, and actually ends up destroying the last Horcrux: he pulls the Sword of Gryffindor out of the Sorting Hat and uses it to lop the head off of Nagini, leaving the way free for Harry to kick Voldemort's scaly ass one final time. Did we mention Neville was on fire during all of this?
- He wasn't on fire in any meaningful way because Harry taking the bullet for all his friends prevented Voldemort from doing them any damage. "Haven't you noticed that none of your spells are binding?" But he's still a Badass for keeping his head, noticing he could break Voldemort's body-bind curse, and remembering where the Sword of Gryffindor would be when needed.
- Miles Teg from Heretics of Dune undergoes a strange torture and becomes so fast that he kills Honored Matres with ease.
- Edmond Dantes becomes The Count Of Monte Cristo to get revenge on his enemies.
- As does Gulliver Foyle, of The Stars My Destination. He was always an asshole, but now he's an obsessive one.
- Happens to Admiral Daala from the Star Wars Expanded Universe. In her original appearances, during the 90's, she was an overblown Villain Sue, repeatedly stated as being a tactical genius, but her strategies were highly incompetent. On her return in the Legacy of the Force series, she not only lives up to the reputation she was given in-universe, but manages to kick all kinds of ass using a fleet consisting mainly of obsolete starships. On top of everything else, she has an eyepatch now, not to mention a full name. Natasi Daala
- In War And Peace, Dolokhov returns from being Put On A Bus at an opera house the Rostovs attend. Rumors fly about concerning the adventures in Persia he has been on, and the new sword sheathed at his side shows he's not just a conniving swindler anymore. Nikolai Rostov also levels up when he goes hunting with his uncle during the book's Christmas Episode, as he transforms from a coward during battle to a war hero.
- In Lord Of The Rings, Gandalf's evolution from Gandalf the Grey to Gandalf the White is arguably a levelup, as exemplified in this poster
 .
- Enough so that, in an initially niche Russian internet/pirate-distributed parody consisting of the movies' video and completely revoiced quirky audio that enjoyed such success that it vastly surpassed the original films in popularity across the former Soviet Union, Gandalf in fact utters "I fell into the white and gained a levelup" upon his return.
- Samwise Gamgee takes a big level in badass when Frodo is incapacitated by the Giant Spider Shelob and taken by the Orcs in Return of the King. He takes up the Ring in Frodo's stead to keep the Orcs from taking it, takes up Sting and takes Shelob down. Then he heads for
Barad-dur the Tower of Cirith Ungol and takes down every Orc standing between him and Frodo.
- How about Merry, who helps take down the freaking Witch-King!, or Pippin, when he... you know what? Every single hobbit in the Shire ends up taking a level in the Scouring of the Shire! This was proof that Hobbits can be tough when they want to be, they just prefer being lazy.
- It's implied that all hobbits have the potential to be badass. There are many examples, but a good one is when a cursed sword breaks off in Frodo's arm about halfway through the first book and later Gandalf tells him that he lasted seventeen days with it in him, while an ordinary man would have died long before then. Gandalf doesn't attribute it to Frodo's individual toughness, but says that hobbits can be amazingly tough when necessary.
- In the Latin textbook series Ecce Romani, Sextus spends a whole two years worth of lessons being annoying, whiny, and cowardly. Then, being his usual wimpy self, he goes back to the changing room at the public baths because the water's too hot, sees a thief stealing his clothes and chases the guy halfway across the bath complex on slippery tiles, then pushes him into a frigidarium (that's the cold pool, for you non-Latin-students). Unfortunately, he goes right back to being a wimp after this chapter.
- The Laughter of Dead Kings, the most recent Elizabeth Peters Vicky Bliss book, reveals that Schmidt has had a hidden level of badass all along, and actually is the Greatest Swordsman in Europe.
- In Prince Caspian, when the Pevensies return to Narnia, they regain all the fighting skills they had learned in the fifteen years they were in Narnia the last time. They return as children, except the relatively inexperienced children you had read about in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe are now a bunch of young badasses. The difference is even more noticeable in The Film Of The Book.
- Malazan Book Of The Fallen. All of it. Innocent n00b characters will invariably become demon-slaying demigods within a few dozen chapters of their first appearance, whilst the already-extant badasses will become elite super-badasses in the same timespan. This troper wouldn't be surprised if we encountered one of the random peasents from the start of the first book again and it turned out they had levelled up to the rank of Jedi Ninja Half-Deities of Awesome.
- In other words: Apsalar and Cutter?
- The Wheel Of Time novels, although granted magical reasons are usually given for the level-gaining, such as Mat's implanted fighting and tactical planning memories turning him literally overnight into a canny warrior and general, or Rand having his former, much more experienced and competent incarnation pumping advice directly into his brain, like Yoda-on-Tap. The only unexplained levelling up takes place with regards to Gawyn Trakand, who goes from a decent swordsman to somehow being able to take down experienced Warders twice his age to later wiping out attacking bands of Aiel warriors, trained since birth to be badass, by himself.
- Tyrion Lannister of A Song Of Ice And Fire has done this at least twice, first when he rallied a hugely demoralised army to ride against Stannis ("They say I'm half a man. What does that make the lot of you?") and again when he escapes from death row, killing two of the people most responsible for him being there as he leaves.
- Susan from The Dresden Files between Grave Peril and Death Masks. At the end of the former she turns down Dresden's proposal of marriage to leave Chicago to find a way to deal with her half-vampirism, which she had gained after being taken hostage to try and manipulate Dresden. When she returns, a combination of the increased physical capabilities granted by her state, and training and mystic tatoos given to her by an organisation which is a combination of focus group for people like her and covert organisation fighting against vampires leave her a competent combatent (who at one point is able to match a surprised sorcerer being powered by a fallen angel) who is a useful asset to Dresden during his case in that book. At the end, she returns to South America (where she had spent the interim between books) to take in the fight against the dominating vampire faction based there.
- Kim Kinnison, in E.E. Smith's Lensman series, does this, going in a few chapters of Galactic Patrol from relying almost wholly upon brawn and gadgets to not only taking over multiple enemy officers' minds to achieve his ends undercover, but controlling guard dogs in order to turn off shield generators that are blocking him, and more besides. Lampshaded by Mentor, the Deus Ex Machina who grants him his powers, who tells him the advanced training he's getting was inevitable if he survived long enough, and if his mind became mature enough to appreciate the need for it.
- Julie Sims of 1632 goes from being an energetic high school cheerleader at the beginning of the book to a ruthless, crack shot sniper by the end.
Live Action TV
- Joel Fleischman, in his final season on Northern Exposure, went from a clean-cut, irritable Fish Out Of Water to a grizzled Zen master survivalist.
- Wesley on Angel is one of the more long-term, visibly executed cases, marked with actual Character Development. It wasn't just the writers' decision to make him suddenly 'cool' — it was the character's decision to.
- Before his actual level-up, Wesley is a subversion of Took A Level In Badass. When first seen in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Wes was a weak, weaselly wimp. When he first appears in Angel, he seems to be leveled. He rides a motorcycle, dresses in badass chic, and claims to be a "rogue demon hunter." Turns out, though, he's just as pitiful. Then he nearly dies...
- And in Buffy The Vampire Slayer itself Willow starts as geek and a bookworm, helpful only as research type. Her powers increase with time until by the end of Season 7, she is a super-powerful witch (and fully in control of her abilities).
- Giles is retroactively given levels in badass in Season 2, when it turns out he used to be a badass before putting his skills on hold when he joined the Watchers, but occasionally trots them out when the need is great. Best examples: unexpectedly beating the crap out of Ethan and later attacking Angelus with a flaming piece of wood and, momentarily at least, gaining the upper hand. Also: end of season 6, anyone? Giles full of magic = crowning moment of awesome.
- The Scoobies seem to accumulate levels of badass over the course of the show, particularly over the summers of 1998 (between season 2 and 3) and 2001 (between season 5 and 6), to compensate for the Slayer's absence.
- The entire graduating class of 1999 gains a level in badass when they take off their graduation robes to reveal their arsenal of medieval weapons.
- Dawn is a relatively mild (or at least non-flashy) but still striking example, being a fairly normal high school kid who manage to pick up reasonably fluent Turkish and Sumerian, apparently in her spare time.
- Not to mention scaring the crap out of Spike in Season 7.
- Ultimately, it can be argued that any character who interacts with the main cast in the Buffy/Angelverse for a reasonable stretch of time ends up gaining levels in Badass, to the point where you have half a dozen "normal" human characters taking down beasts and monstrosities that previously were considered unkillable by anything but a supernatural hero like the Slayer.
- Because the only choices for people around The Slayer and The Champion are: run far, far away; get horribly killed; or level up.
- Quinn Mallory from Sliders apparently took a level of badass during the Channel Hop from Fox to Sci-Fi. This was mostly a result of Jerry O'Connell's increasing creative control over the show, and, like pretty much the rest of the show by this point, came off as contrived and meaningless.
- Peter Petrelli takes a level of badass from Season One to Season Two of Heroes. Unfortunately, his intellect fails to keep up.
- In the Dystopian future of the 1st season episode "Five Years Gone", Future Peter, Hiro, and Sylar have all taken multiple levels.
- The season 3 premiere is full of characters taking a level: Suresh by injecting himself, and future Ando (yet to be explained)
- Ando previously took a level in Bad Ass when he challenged Sylar with nothing but a sword in the finale of season 1.
- In all honesty, Hiro started taking severeal levels of Bad Ass from the first three episodes. He flirted with full Bad Ass status in the last episode of season 1.
- Matt Parkman and Mohinder Suresh have taken up several levels of Bad Ass in season 2. Micah Sanders has potential to to do the same in season 3.
- In the dystopian future revealed in Season 3, Claire has clearly taken a level in badass.
- Apparently, all the villains Claire defeated over the course of volume 3 were enough XP for her to gain a level in Badass by the volume finale, culminating in her defeat of Sylar.
- Daniel Jackson started Stargate SG-1 as the team's Smart Guy, and was at most armed with a Beretta, tasked mainly with translations and exposition on Earth's various pantheons. A couple seasons later, and he's upgraded to whatever automatic weapon the rest of the team's using, and holding his own as much as the career military characters.
- This troper vaguely recalls someone (possibly Jackson himself) handwaving this by mentioning that Jackson had received some form of combat training since joining SG-1. Which is rather understandable, given the kinds of situations SG-1 found itself caught up in on a regular basis.
- In Stargate Atlantis, Rodney followed in Daniel's footsteps. In a first season episode he's terrified of the idea that he might actually have to use a gun to defend himself. Not too long later, he's laying down covering fire with a P90 and using cover like a trained soldier. Probably justified in both cases, as it wasn't an immediate change, and it seems like a matter of necessity given the situations they find themselves in. Rodney himself may be a partial subversion, as he still freaks out while killing Wraith, even though he seems good at it. This is also possibly due to his internal Chance of Imminent Doom meter; when it redlines, he gets Awesome.
- More recently, Dr. Keller is seen fighting off a Wraith with a stick long enough for McKay to shoot it. He asks where she learned to fight, and she mentions she's been taking sparring lessons.
- Teyla had a hand-waved level in flying the ship single-handedly badass. Apparently a short lesson with the weapons officer is enough to run the entire ship.
- Since most ships in the gateverse seem to be partly flown by psychic powers - including the Goa'uld's motherships, that isn't particularly surprising.
- In Smallville, Lana Lang, of all people, has traded the Wangst that made her The Wesley of the show for so long for running her own secret organization and being prepared to kill if necessary. They may have gone a skosh too far for it to be believable, though.
- It also went away after about half a season so she was back to the same old Lana Lang
- Clark himself finally became a decent fighter in the sixth season when he dealt with a phantom zone thug in an illegal TNA-like match. Most other times when he dealt with an enemy of a comparable power level, he would get thrown around like a rag doll before a Deus Ex Machina ended the fight. With this match Clark was in a bad mood and legitimately traded blows with the guy, winning through skill and strength, not dumb luck. Ever since Clark has done markedly better with these throw-downs.
- Dexter took a level in Badass in one of the late season two episodes:
Dexter: "In that case... let me put this out in the open for you. No matter what you try, no matter when, no matter how hard you work, I'll always be one step ahead of you for one simple reason."
Doakes: "And what's that?"
Dexter: "I own you." HEADBUTT!
- A long-term-development example: in Xena Warrior Princess. In episode 10, "Hooves and Harlots", Gabrielle had her first lesson in staff fighting. She kept hitting her own head. Over subsequent episodes, she practiced and got good at it. In later seasons she takes multiple levels with her fighting skills increasing until she's almost on a par with Xena.
- Culminating in the Season Six finale, when she becomes one of the few people other than Xena to catch the Chakram and, in the last ever scene of the show, appears to be taking up Xena's legacy as a full blown hero.
- Mickey Smith of Doctor Who does this twice. Or maybe it took two stages. At first a cowering if sweet natured nerd, he moves up a level during the year he's falsely suspected of his girlfriend's murder. He becomes a lot braver, even willing to die to protect his girlfriend's mother, as well as developing some impressive hacking skills. He goes up another level offscreen after several years of fighting Cybermen in an alternate universe. Last time we saw him as a full Bad Ass complete with deeper voice and BFG.
- Rose becomes equally badass by the end of season 4.
- We can't forget Rose's mum Jackie, who got to carry a BFG and shoot a Dalek to smitheerens alongside Mickey.
- They're not the only ones to do it. Between her departure and visit in the middle of season four, Martha joined UNIT and is now quite Badass herself.
- Anyone who watches Doctor Who knows the Doctor has the tendency to turn his companions into badasses. It could be argued that it's part of the reason why he takes companions in the first place. Davros, one of the Doctor's oldest enemies, accuses him of this specifically, saying that while he may have created the monstrous Dalek killing machines, the Doctor has transformed innumerable innocent normal people into weapons himself.
- John Connor takes a long-anticipated level of badass in the first episode of the second season of The Sarah Connor Chronicles when he violently stops a rape attempt on his mother and in doing so throws his old standard of Thou Shalt Not Kill out the window.
- And in "The Last Voyage of the Jimmy Carter", John shows he's continued leveling up in badass when he confronts Jesse and tells her he figured out who and what Riley really was, casually takes her pistol from her, lays out why he is and will be the future leader of mankind, and tells her that her plan to make Cameron kill Riley never would have worked to break them apart. Thoroughly awesome.
- 24 is full of characters who have taken up multiple levels of Bad Ass. These include Teri Bauer, Kim Bauer, Chloe O'Brien in season 4 (see also Crowning Moment Of Awesome), George Mason (see also Heroic Sacrifice), Wayne Palmer, and even Milo Pressman (total geek in season 1; to taking bullets in season 6). Some of the bad guys pull this off as well (Behrooz Araz and his trusty shovel in season 4 is the premier example)
- John Crichton from Farscape takes multiple levels of badass over four seasons: he starts out as a clueless nerd, and by series end is so badass he manages to intimidate two entire galactic empires into leaving him the frell alone by threatening to wipe out the universe. THE ENTIRE FREAKING UNIVERSE! And what makes it Bad Ass is he can pull it off.
- Of course, a big part of it is that he's gone so insane that he's come out the other side.
- In Babylon 5 Lennier is introduced as a mild-mannered, monk-like Minbari religious caste-member with a zen-like philosophy who is surprisingly shown a few episodes later to be able to defend himself with martial arts and take out a whole room full of drunk people, which is fair enough. However, by Season 4 he is fully capable of taking out multiple opponents belonging to the Minbari warrior caste trained almost from birth in the art of unarmed combat. This is before he joins the thousand-year-old organisation of elite badasses from beyond badassery in the final season who train up his badass skills to something on the other side of preposterousness.
- Sayid on Lost is a badass to begin with, but in the post-island flashforwards, he's graduated to international hitman. Sun is also seen in "There's No Place Like Home" to take a level (or two).
- Hoshi Sato, the nervous alien language specialist in Star Trek Enterprise, is given retroactive martial arts skills which she uses during Dr Phlox's kidnapping. While it's likely Hoshi would have become more assertive after her experiences during the Xindi conflict, it would have made more sense for her to have used the more simple takedowns taught to the crew by Major Hayes during this time. But less cool, I'm sure.
- And she even levels up in the Mirror Universe, too. Empress Sato, anyone?
- Another Star Trek example. Like the Millenium Falcom, the USS Enterprise NX-01 is another spaceship that takes multiple levels in badass. But this was a logical progression, when the ship first left Earth, Starfleet had no clue of the kinds of dangers out there. As the ship encounters various threats, the crew upgrades the ship's ass-kicking abilities on the go, Trip and his team build phaser cannons from scratch, Reed creates the proto-type force field and comes up with the Red Alert system, and T'Pol routinely improves the ship's sensors. Of course, after the Xindi invasion, the ship is literally retrofitted into a war-ship, complete with the introduction of the famous photon torpedoes.
- Interestingly, the civilian characters of Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica have been immune to this (with the exception of those revealed to be Cylons), although Laura Roslin becomes a political badass. Considering military officers like Adama and Cain, the badass market of Battlestar is pretty much cornered.
- However, the [[TV]] movie Razor is all about Kendra Shaw being molded into a badass by Cain.
- Also: Saul Tigh. In the first two seasons he's basically an alcoholic Commander Contrarian, but in the first five episode of Season Three alone he loses an eye, sends men on suicide missions against the Cylons, shuts up Laura Roslin, poisons his wife, and executes collaborators by airlocking them. He has remained awesome ever since.
- In the X-files, Skinner took a level up in badass when he beat up Mr. X in the elevator. Don't mess with 'Nam vets.
- To a certain extent, Jadzia Dax in Star Trek Deep Space Nine. She starts off as a reserved, quiet young woman, but (especially after her experience meeting an incarnation of her high-living former host Curzon) abruptly metamorphoses into a blood wine-chugging, bat'leth-swinging, Samoan-fire-dancing, blood-oath-honouring, Worf-marrying-and-rough-Klingon-sex-having Bad Ass. Interestingly, Dax's next host Ezri went through an abbreviated version of this after she was introduced at the beginning of the seventh season, starting as a bewildered Fish Out Of Water and going on to do such things as hunting a serial killer and confronting her gangster-involved family (particularly after Garak reads her beads in "Afterimage").
- Both played magnificently and deconstructed a bit in Power Rangers RPM. The yellow ranger was initially a Rich Bitch who took a level in badass to survive the razing of the planet, but she runs into problems when her new Action Girl career is interrupted by pre-badass commitments.
- The green ranger first gets his powers without any kind of training whatsoever. And it is made very clear in his first battle. However, as the season is progressing, he, while still the least skilled fighter of the team, is undeniably improving, as he is no doubt receiving training off screen.
- Chuck's second season finale. "Guys, I know kung-fu," indeed.
Professional Wrestling
- Japanese professional wrestling does this in a number of ways. Most Japanese wrestlers start out as lower-than-dirt Jobbers who lose pathetically unless they're wrestling each other, in which case they use stock moves to decide the victor (the German Suplex is a huge crowd-pleaser in Japan partly because it is the official finisher of anyone who doesn't have a distinct finisher yet). After spending a few years as total losers, these wrestlers will then get Put On A Bus to wrestle overseas, after which they come back with a more distinctive wrestling style and a new, more badass Finishing Move that allows them to climb the ranks. This gets taken even further in some promotions, in which the new finisher becomes So Last Season and the wrestler breaks through to the very top with another finisher and another level in Badass.
- One of the most famous uses of this was the All Japan Pro Wrestling 1995 Champion's Carnival. Akira Taue had spent years as a bit of a Wesley because, while a competent grapler, he was constantly Overshadowed By Awesome in his tag team with Toshiaki Kawada and was given top billing despite being nowhere near the level of fantastic main-event technicians like Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi, Steve Williams, and the aforementioned Kawada. However, during the Carnival (a round-robin tournament for a title opportunity), Taue discarded his goofy agility-based offense in favor of brutal power moves that better suited his height and awkward build. The more power-based moveset and accompanying winning streak made a Dark Horse Victory look very plausible going into a match with the nigh-unbeatable Misawa.
Close Professional Wrestling
Tabletop Games
- Pawn promotion in Chess.
- And likewise the upgrade the queen underwent in the fifteenth century. Before that it was limited to moving one square diagonally, making it not even as powerful as a king, which can at least cover all eight squares around it. Afterwards the new rules variation (orthogonal and diagonal travel without limit where unobstructed) became tellingly known as "madness chess" ("That much power wielded by a woman? Madness!") and the Italians called the piece rabioso.
- If it comes to that, the ancient bishop was even weaker, moving diagonally two squares exactly, which restricted it so that 56 of the 64 squares were permanently off-limits.
- While no Dungeons And Dragons Prestige Class is explicitly named "Badass", there are many, many candidates, such as:
- Heir of Siberiys - Eberron dragonmark, turned Up To Eleven.
- Extreme Explorer - Kind of like being Indiana Jones, really.
- Archmage - is able to sacrifice high-level spell slots to get things like
six fireball spells per day 2 Time Stops (9th level spell) a day at the cost of a tth level slot (and it can be done 5 times).
- Pyrokineticist - Kill It With Fire, well, psionic fire anyway.
- This happens to numerous characters in Magic: the Gathering. Crovax and Ertai each take about twenty levels in badass when they sign up with the Phyrexians. Kamahl takes a level in badass when he becomes the Fist of Krosa, and his sister takes a level in badass when she becomes Phage the Untouchable.
Video Games
- In Xenosaga, MOMO proved quite useless, serving as little more than a plot device; in battle she had a high MP count but was pathetically weak and virtually any other character was better. In the sequel she had aged up slightly and become more competent, but most notably had suddenly become an absolute god in combat: High speed, high evasion, high attack power, excellent heals, excellent buffs, and the largest mana pool in the game had her far outstriping any other playable character. Her low HP was her only remaining flaw, but considering her ridiculous evasion meant she didn't really get hit anymore anyway...
- Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2 started life as a naive dork, albeit one with a nasty secret and a bit too much talent at chopping people up. In Metal Gear Solid 4, he's turned into a homicidal, husky-voiced, immortal cyborg ninja capable of killing things with antigravity kung-fu and his feet. It was a backlash against him being The Scrappy, probably. He also appears to have taken a few levels in "Lightning Deity", since he was capable of killing soldiers with bolts of lighting from inside a properly grounded ship.
- Surprisingly enough, Johnny Sasaki, the recurring joke character takes a level in badass in Metal Gear Solid 4 by removing his mask, but only gets to show it in the cutscene where he admits his love to Meryl and makes a Combat Proposal. The rest of the cutscene is then nothing but pure badassery.
- Leon from the Resident Evil series. The idealistic Naive Newcomer who just began his first day of duty at the Raccoon Police Department in RE 2 had somehow became almost as badass as Albert Wesker by the time RE4!
- At least Leon was a trained cop in RE2, and was hired on by the U.S. Government before RE4. Claire Redfield's level-up has no similar justification. She goes from being a college student in RE2 to a certified ass-kicker in RE: Code Veronica.
- Notable in that Albert Wesker HIMSELF takes a level in between Resident Evil and Code: Veronica— notable in that said level was taken AFTER he was STABBED THROUGH THE CHEST, and was shown off in a brilliant Crowning Moment Of Awesome as he smacked Code: Veronica's virus-injected baddie around like a ping pong ball, completely outshining the game's own protagonists. And Leon's RE4 incarnation is almost as badass as this new Wesker.
- Leon gets yet another upgrade in the movie Degeneration, although it seems to come at the expense of his personality and sense of humor, since he ends up pulling double duty as the film's Mr Exposition.
- Albert Wesker. RE5. Suffice it to say that if he'd had that kind of power back in Code: Veronica, Alexia wouldn't have lasted ten seconds.
- Before Leon was Jill, who got more and more badass throughout the series, from RE to RE 3 to RE 5. Chris fits the trope as well.
- Super Robot Wars manages to do this to Shinji Ikari. And it works. (Partially Or So I Heard due to translation issues.)
- That said, word was that was partly thanks to Captain Bright's infamous bright slaps, which has been scientifically proven to turn wimps into men of awesome (MEN OF DESTINY are another thing).
- Also, Shinji freaked the hell out during the last two missions in the End of Eva Route of Super Robot Wars Alpha 3.
- In addition, one of the main characters in Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 starts out as a delivery boy with a minor Karate background. Then he trains with certain members of the Alpha Numbers—this includes, but is not limited to: cyborgs (Guy and Hiroshi/Jeeg), combat pros (the Wing boys, Banjo, Tsurugi Tetsuya...), a yokozuna, masters of various martial arts (Camille, Wufei, Yun Lee...), a dude who cleaves evil, gods, and battleships (Zengar), a dude who smacks stuff around in space with a ball and chain (ware koso wa~ waRE koso wa~ Baran Doban! fire!fire!fire!fire!), and various characters voiced by Kamiya Akira. By the end of the game, he's kickin' gods around.
- This troper also remembers playing the Compact series of Super Robot Wars with, of all people, Leina Ashta of ZZ Gundam fame. Considering that, in the series, she got kidnapped by Gremmi Toto a few episodes in, and spent her time either waiting for Judau to rescue her or being thought dead after almost getting crushed by a MS you'd think her to be a useless character... WRONG! She's, in fact, pretty powerful if used correctly, reaching a Newtype Level of 6 (Amuro, Camille and her brother reach Level 8, just to give a comparision) and becoming quite destructive if placed in a Mobile Armor. From personal experience, I managed to take down Bask Ohms' flagship just using her. .
- The original Super Robot Wars 3 on the SNES does this with Kou Uraki, hero of Stardust Memory. Starting with less than half the levels of most of the worthwhile characters and piloting a unit meant only for skirmishes, the GP-01. However, as soon as you head off to space and it's upgraded to the Full Vernian model, he proves to be a nimble character if you put effort into training him. Near the end of the game, upon gaining the GP-03, Kou ends up being a proverbial tank in a top-notch Mobile Suit.
- Of course, they couldn't go for too long without doing this to one of their original characters. Original Generation features a character named Ryoto who first appeared as a scared enemy mook. He remains a very minor character until the end of the game, piloting only his original mook mecha or a hand-me-down from more important characters. By the time he rejoins the crew in OG 2, however, he's spent the last six months testing Super Prototypes, and pilots one that can combine with either his girlfriend's tank-thing or a suit of Powered Armor that can detach and turn into a weaponized flying surfboard. Oh, and he almost single-handedly holds off a giant robot dragon that routinely crushes more important characters long enough for said girlfriend and his co-workers to escape. Appropriately enough, this is the point where his theme song upgrades to one called "Ace Pilot" ("Ace Attacker" in the original Japanese).
- Does this also apply to Setsuko Ohara of Super Robot Wars Z? She starts out as the lowest of her team, is quite timid and unsure of herself. Her debut actually starts with being shot down by Kamille Vidan. But then, she is subjected with lots and lots of traumatic event. And when she eventually gets pissed, not only her emotions evolve her BFG into a much more dangerous version, she discards her timid and unsure persona into a badass, yet still gentle, soldier, then proceeds to one shot the guy who breaks her with her new BFG.
- Muse from Romancing Sa Ga 3. She shifts from Ill Girl to Lady Of War instantly. Also Sharl who is upgraded from Broken Hero provided that you got the Silver Hand in Muse's Dream
- Also in addition, the Pirate Black, who regains his youth if you bring him to the fight with Forneus, you don't even need to place him in the active battle party which is good since his stats are quite sucky as an old man.
- Mickey Mouse in Kingdom Hearts 2 You'd have to see it to believe it.
- Lets not forget Sora himself. Two words, Reaction Commands
- Dont forget Kairi who KH 2 gets a leavel from Riku, in the form of her own keyblade.
- Phoenix Wright in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney.
- It's debatable if he's actually badass in that game rather than just being frustratingly cryptic. If anything, the rather competent attorney he became by the third game has been downgraded.
- Leo Stenbuck from Zone Of The Enders, who started out in that game as a (justifiably) depressed street kid, apparently spent the four years between the plotlines of Zo E 1 and Zo E 2 frantically leveling up in Badass until he emerged in the second game almost as a wolf among lambs, capable of piloting his non-Unobtainium LEV against full-on Orbital Frames and more than holding his own.
- In Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria, Alicia starts off the game with such fight quotes as "Do we have to fight?" and "My hands are stinging." Three-fourths of the way through the game ironically, after Silmeria, the titular warrior maiden, is stripped from her she takes a real role as leader, gets an upgrade to her special attack, and is practically thirsting for blood in her fight quotes.
- In Half Life 2, Alyx Vance practically has to be babied by the player during the sequences where she tags along. Valve paid attention to these complaints and from Episode One on, she's a capable shooter who takes out wave after wave of zombies and soldiers, both during the gameplay and in the scripted events. In one level with a shortage of ammunition (which doesn't affect Alyx's gun), the player spends a lot of time using the flashlight to illuminate targets for Alyx to shoot, turning the first half of the stage into a sort of reverse Escort Mission.
- Not really, while Episode One makes her even more Nigh Invulnerable, even in Half Life 2 she can take tons of punishment as long as you at least try and shoot a few things for her.
- In Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, Haar was a fairly average unit who joined too late to be useful. Come Radiant Dawn, Haar joins earlier (among other things) and is now in the top tier.
- In the gap between The Binding Blade/Fire Emblem (AKA Blazing Sword) we have Barte (to a degree) and Karel, depending on whether you go by chronological order (Karel) or release order (Barte).
- The first part of Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War has Oifaye and Shanan as tag-along cute kids no older than 14, and the second showes them as quite capable fighters and leaders.
- Then there's Elincia, who starts out as a quiet princess sitting at the sidelines and cheering for her bodyguard and his mini-army to win. By the end of the story, she hops on a pegasus, picks up a sword, and decides that Ashnard bitch is going down. Three years later, after being pushed around by her fellow nobles, she too jumps on the top-tier boat to show the country who's queen.
- Zelda, previously a Distressed Damsel, leveled up in Ocarina of Time with her alter ego Sheik, and has ever since had the tendency to assist Link in the final battle, even though she still tends to be a Distressed Damsel for some/much of the game.
- Continued further in The Wind Waker with her identity of Tetra and assistance in the final battle. Likewise, she assists in the second-to-last battle of Twilight Princess, and her period of captivity in that game is of her own choice (to protect her people) rather than because she was kidnapped.
- Link himself is pretty much an incarnation of this trope; he starts pretty much every game as an unarmed kid in a backwater and ends up Bad Ass enough to believably take down the Big Bad. Differs from the standard RPG hero listed above by being more of an Action Adventure character.
- Baldur's Gate saw several characters take levels in badass at various points-Sarevok, Nalia, Aerie, and Imoen in Throne of Bhaal come immediately to mind. (the protagonist) seems to take his/her biggest round of badass in Spellhold in BG2.
- The change is especially notable in Aerie, who is initially the most timid and insecure character in the entire game. And then, suddenly, she blurts out the battle cry, "This will hurt you a lot more than me!". Even Minsc's battle cries can't beat that one...
- In the Neverwinter Nights expansion, Hordes of the Underdark, Deekin undergoes this as well. Formerly he was a kobold (weakling level one type creature) musician with the barest hints of magical power. In this expansion he becomes a half-dragon and helps your hero take on a greater demon, Mephistopholes— ruler of Cania, the eigth hell (making him the second most powerful demon in existance!)— eventually defeating him. Also note, Deekin is the only character that will not turn away from the hero as Mephistopholes attempts to persuade them to join him, showing his true colors as a very good and loyal creature, which is almost opposite of most Kobolds.
- The good is the opposite of most kobolds. They are, however, extremely loyal, being Always Lawful Evil.
- Zack, the titular character in Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure, is one of the more feeble game protagonists. He can flip switches, set off cannons, and use enemies' strength against them, but if he were to encounter a common goon who isn't asleep or distracted, and he's done for. In the penultimate mission, however, Zack finds a sword and is actually able to duel and destroy roaming guards the old-fashioned way.
- Metal Sonic in Sonic Heroes. He manages to augment himself with "data" samples from Sonic, Tails Knuckles, Shadow, and Chaos. The result is an obscenely powerful, fast, intelligent machine made out of liquid metal and possessing the power of Chaos Control. Now compare that to his first appearance.
- Even then, he was badass. And the whole point of his creation was to be a robot that could fight Sonic on equal terms -with the addition of built-in weapons. What about Eggman in SA 2, when he puts a gun to Amy's head(TWICE)? Not to mention in Sonic Adventure how Amy herself took a level in Badass.(Beware.That.Hammer. It should not be called the Piko-Piko Hammer, not in her hands. In her hands it should be called Mjolnir.)
- In his first appearance, Wally in Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald is quite sickly and needs help in catching his first Pokemon (Ralts), and moved to a cleaner town to recover. He later shows up partly recovered but still only has that one mon and is easily beaten. Much later he shows up right at the end of Victory Road and has an almost full team of mons levelled in their forties.
- A lot of Pokemon fit this trope, evolving from cutesy but weak creatures to powerful menacing badass monsters. In the anime, this happens to May's Torchic while fending off a herd of Breloom.
- While already a Badass, Boss from Saints Row 2 does what he did so well in the first installation and adds a more brutal touch to it in the sequels. Feats include putting radioactive liquid in Maero's tattoo ink just to show he won't accept 20 percent of the town, saving his hideout from gangsters while high on drugs as well savagely beating up most of his enemies if possible. Events in the finale of the first game inspired him to stop being a Silent Bob, stop eing "A bitch who keeps his mouth shut and does what he's told".
- Star Fox: Team Star Wolf were once generic boss enemies who soon developed character (at least, Wolf and Leon) and kicked the two typical baddies Pigma and Andrew and replaced them with Panther. They also become involved in the story.
- In Super Smash Bros. Brawl's Subspace Emissary mode, Lucas is pretty much characterized as a scared little kid, despite his psychic powers. He spends half a level running away from a giant hopping statue that Ness offs with one PK Flash. Then, after Wario attacks the two of them, Ness makes a Heroic Sacrifice for Lucas, who then runs away from Wario and the trophy-ified Ness without trying to save him. He makes some progress since then; several stages later when Wario shows up to attack him and the Pokémon Trainer, and instead of running away, he steps up and takes Wario out.
- This mirrors his growth in Mother 3. His twin brother Claus is much braver... though this leads to Mecha-Drago nearly killing him when he goes to avenge his mom's death, and Porky reformatting him as his army's general.
- The Sly Cooper series of games has Murray and Bently. Murry goes from just being big to actually being somewhere near as strong as he thinks he is from the first game to the second. Bently is an even more obvious example. He acts strictly as Mission Control in the first game, actually starts going out and doing stuff in the second and by the third has tricked himself out so that Sly is really only the leader of the gang in name. Many fans actually consider Bently, not Sly, to be the true hero of the franchise thanks to this and his overall characters development.
- Happened twice to Jak - there was a little incident involving two years of Dark Eco experimentation at the beginning of Renegade, and then during Jak III he gained Light Eco powers. Also happens to other characters - Tess goes from simple Fanservice to being a scarily competent weapon developer between 2 and 3, and everyone (except Tess and Samos) becomes an expert driver in Jak X. Even a vehicle gets Rescued From The Scrappy Heap with the aid of a level in badass; the Hellcat cruiser was useless in Renegade, but an upgraded version appears in Jak 3 so Jak can take on an entire flying war factory of tanks and drones by himself.
- In Siren, Kyoya Suda and Yoriko Anno take serious levels in badass.
- In Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Zack takes several levels throughout the story majorly when he is forced to kill his mentor, Angeal, gaining the Buster Sword and a new hairdo. Cloud also takes some serious levels within the literal last two or three minutes of the game, going from a simple SOLDIER grunt to the asskicker you know and love from Final Fantasy VII.
- Knights of the Old Repulbic: T3 M4 in the second game. Flying a ship to safety, Locking the navigational controls so only her can guide the ship, and deactivating an assassin droid? Tell me he didn't take a few levels [considering the droid had almost no personality in the first game and only one required instance.
- Every single one of your opponents in the Wii Punch Out Title Defense Mode. They all spend the time after Little Mac kicks their asses to learn new and more devastating tricks. Yes, even Glass Joe.
- You the pilot in the Ace Combat games. The first plane is almost always a dinky, outdated model, and even the relatively modest starter F-16 in 6 is not top tier. By the time endgame arrives, you're using a faster, more agile and survivable Cool Plane, to say nothing of the Game Breaker superfighters turning on a dime with Frickin Laser Beams or Macross Missile Massacre on tap. Beyond that, however, is going back to the dinky planes and Cherry Tapping people to death. In fact, the same could be said for many combat flight-action games in the similar vein.
- In the five years between his appearances in Street Fighter Alpha and Street Fighter IV, Dan must have been training; he's gone from the Joke Character to a Lethal Joke Character that's surprisingly high on the tier list. It's even reflected in the game; his face is much more serious (though he still gets excited when he wins).
Webcomics
- Done in the Dungeons And Dragons-based Order Of The Stick, where Elan literally takes a level in badass — or, rather, in the Dashing Swordsman prestige class.
- Vaarsuvius also does this (albeit only temporarily through a Deal With The Devil) in order to save [his|her] children from a really pissed off dragon.
- Zebra Girl: Jack / Jack The Plaid. Complete with LoTR quote and the villain noting he 'pulled a Gandalf'.
- In Narbonic, the character Seth was a pimple-faced girl-shy role-playing nerd. Then he got sent to hell, where he fought his way out after obtaining the demonic axe Zürrr by defeating the devil queen Sh'zk'ra. And picked up a Badass Longcoat somewhere along the way.
- Torg of Sluggy Freelance took his level in badass during the That Which Redeems arc. Being stuck in an alternate universe with demons hunting you all the time will do that. Afterwards he seems to have settled back into a Crouching Moron Hidden Badass.
- It's easy to forget that, yes, he still owns a sword that can kill demons and gods if he allows it to feast on the blood of the innocent. Untill somebody gives him a reason to pick it up again.
- It's also worth keeping in mind that, prior to That Which Redeems, he succeeded in killing off Aylee's Evil Clone, who had just defeated Bun-Bun. Bun-Bun prefers to pretend that the whole thing didn't happen, and nobody feels like arguing the point.
- From the time Torg got the sword in the Stormbreaker Saga, his badassery was more or less incidental/accidental. It wasn't until after That Which Redeems that it became remarkable. He appears to have taken another level during Aylee-Code Boom, becoming a casual zombie-slayer.
- And again. Perhaps it has become a Running Gag.
- Under the tutelage of her 'Kolee,' her teacher, Zeetha, Agatha's most literal level-in-badass in Girl Genius appears to be a work in progress, though the mere evolution from hopeless klutz of Polygnostic University to a Spark on the level of any previous Heterodyne would certainly qualify.
- Steve from Questionable Content, in what doubles as an epic Big Lipped Alligator Moment...unless, of course, it's mentioned again.
- The character Cale'Anonfrom the webcomic Looking For Group. He starts the series off rather clueless and useless, and in the first comic gets blasted to cinders by Richard. By the third or fourth issue, he's changed a little and very soon is pulling stunts like this and this
Web Original
Western Animation
- Not to throw in another Avatar The Last Airbender example, but many people found Katara's sudden leap from being second to Aang in waterbending to being Aang's infinitely more skilled trainer rather jarring (the fact that her training was handled entirely offscreen and concluded with the use of As You Know does little to rectify).
- Sokka, who was previously just a comic relief character took his level in badass when he got his space sword, made actual plans for an army and wore that cool wolf armor
- Played for laughs in the The Fairly Oddparents Made For TV Movie, Abra-Catastrophe!, where Cosmo briefly helps Timmy combat an all-powerful Denzel Crocker after watching an 11-second workout video and gaining Hulk Hogan pecs.
- All the Autobots should qualify for this trope, since they were designed for civilian use. Extensive after-market tuning turned a loser into the Optimus Prime we know and love today.
- Reversing this seems to be the main point of Transformers Animated, where the Autobots were all workers on a space bridge, and only have a weapon or two each, all of which, with the exception of Optimus's axe, had non-combat purposes in mind. This was to keep the Decepticons from suffering from villain decay (which is also why there are more human villains). In fact, they're armed to the teeth and it takes all of the Autobots to just take down one or two of them.
- Sort of subverted by the second season. Not only did Optimus Prime come close to being in the Elite Guard (making Prime rank despite being kicked out), Bumblebee and Bulkhead were at boot camp for a while, Prowl has had cyberninja training, and Ratchet lived through the Great War. They're not just handymen.
- Not quite... with the exception of Ratchet (who wanted a quiet job out of the limelight), they were all failures. Bulkhead and Bumblebee were kicked out, Optimus Prime was kicked out, and Jazz immediately realizes that Prowl hasn't completed his Cyber-Ninja training.
- During Transwarped, Sari of all people took a level in badass. In fact, she had to take a level out of badass, because powering up her newly-discovered-to-be-technoorganic self made her an out of control juggernaut that nearly killed Bumblebee and endangered most of the city. Now she just shoots energy blasts from her hands, can program space bridges, and is actually mature.
- Wheelie of all people took a level in badass after season three. He lost the rhyming speech disability, got drunk, and beat up several Decepticons in succession in the Headmasters pilot.
- Let's not forget Galvatron. As Megatron, "Decepticons, REEEETREEEEEEAT!" was pratically his catchphrase, uttered about three times per episode. His high-pitched voice (second only to Starscream) didn't add Badass points, either. Then he gets upgraded into Leonard Nimoy temporarily. Then he goes mad, permanently and becomes a much more interesting villain and unpredictable threat. Unfortunately, crazy Galvatron was as likely to pound his own minions as he was the Autobots. Other versions of Megatron get upgraded into Galvatron as well, but for the first Galvatron, it's about the personality change even more than the increase in power.
- Cheetor from Beast Wars got noticeably more capable with his own abilities. Originally just a scout and little skill in combat, he eventually became The Lancer to Optimus Primal during Beast Machines and a competent leader in his own right.
- Does it count when a Continuity Reboot gives a new version of a character more Badass points than the previous? If so, look no further than Starscream. The original Starscream was mostly comic relief, pulling transparent betrayal schemes, getting smacked down, and making everyone wonder why Megatron doesn't just shoot him. Then come the two latest versions: Cybertron Starscream is much like the original, but he knows how to keep his mouth shut. He winds up with enough power to challenge a god and completely outclass the Autobots and Decepticons alike. And Animated Starscream is stronger than the main Autobots put together without a Mac Guffin, nearly took down Megatron in the premiere movie, becomes immortal when he does get some Macguffinry, creates his own clone army, and takes over the giant Autobot Omega Supreme, all the while being the best Large Ham since Beast Wars Megatron. Just about every scene of his is a new Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
- Certain versions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, like the recent CGI movie, have April O'Neil learning their brand of ninjitsu.
- Serling, a butler robot in Fast Foward, actually saved his master's life in probably one of the most impressive fashions.
- In the animated version of The Legion Of Super Heroes, the entire series takes a level in badass between the first season and the Darker And Edgier second season. Several of the male characters bulk up significantly, especially Superman, Brainiac 5, Timber Wolf, and Lightning Lad (who also Grows the Beard). On top of that, it also introduces a second Future Badass version of Superman. At least in the case of Superman (the original one) this is justified as Brainiac intentionally went back in time to get him, but not as far back in time, so the Superman he brings back is older and more experienced.
- Enzo Matrix from ReBoot. Even more jarring come Season 4.0, when both the Before (Enzo) and After (Matrix) versions exist simultaneously.
- Ofdensen in Metalocalypse, starting with the first season finale. Because sometimes a Liz Lemon Job requires you to kick some ass.
- Here's a fun game: take some buddies who are familiar with the Superfriends and show them either the Justice League episode "The Enemy Below" or "The Terror Beyond". Once they're done, tell them that the crazy blonde badass dude with the hook for a hand is, in fact, the once incredibly lame Aquaman. We would like pictures of their reactions.
- The cartoon version of the American Godzilla. Sure, it's technically his last-surviving offspring. But, the fact that he has nuclear breath and fights other monsters like his Japanese counterpart really helps.
- Don't forget that a three-part special has the ORIGINAL American Godzilla being turned into a surprisingly powerful cyborg.
- Ron Stoppable from Kim Possible took a severe level in badass the first movie, the Grand Finale and the episodes where he is turned evil.
- In the Kim Possible movie, 'A Sitch in Time, the future version of Monique has clearly taken several levels in badass since we last saw her— she's gone from having to duck and weave and run away from every bad guy she faces (when she subs for Ron as Kim's sidekick in the present), to helping Kim kick some serious ass in the future. (Of course, Ron is still the one who ultimately saves the day.)
- In the Disney short "Lambert The Sheepish Lion", Lambert is a lion that is always hiding behind his sheep mommy when the other sheep tease him. Up until a wolf tried to eat his mom.
- In Batman The Animated Series the episode "Mad Love" shows the character, Harley Quinn taking a level of badass on multiple people. She utilizes a thrown away plan by The Joker positively, stabs Batman in the back (of the neck), and has Batman out to the point where he later admits to Joker, "You know, she came closer to killing me than you ever have. Puddin'." Of course her CMOA vanishes when she gets knocked out a five story building.
- Remember when Cobra Commander of Gi Joe was a whiny twit of silly schemes? When he destroys Moscow as a show of force, in Gi Joe Resolute, you will know you are dealing with a badass Big Bad who would give anyone nightmares.
Real Life
- In the UK, after secondary school, students of age 16-18 can take a series of two year courses called A Levels at 'Sixth Form' colleges, usually as a way of meeting entrance criteria for a university course. Unfortunately, most sixth form colleges don't allow students to take A Level in 'Badass'. Though, nothing's stopping you from taking regular A Levels while taking a level in badass. If you do, you have an exciting future ahead of you, I'm told.
- You remember that puny kid, or the fat pudgy one? The ones you always picked last? Yeah, well, they joined the Reserve Officers Training in college. You will now address them as "Badass, sir!"
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