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Many Big Bads feel the best minions are homegrown ones. Tykebombs are typically raised from birth (or creation, for Sci Fi) with the idea of serving out of loyalty. This means putting an immense amount of potential power into the hands of a wildly inappropriate user, usually a young child.
These villains would probably be more effective if said creations were not typically abused or treated badly by villains who insist they exist to serve their master, rather than being coddled and praised. This usually culminates in the character's explosive retaliation (often literally), escaping and eventually becoming a thorn in some hero's side. If the character is an actual child, this can complicate the hero's sense of morality of how he deals with people.
Notably this trope is derived from real life, as many cultures took to training elite warriors from early age. Medieval knights were commonly trained from early boyhood by a Knight mentor (the word boy is even derived from a word for "servant"). Middle Eastern mamluks and Turkish Janissaries were relatively similar, as are certain Asian warrior monks. This makes the trope at least Older Than Print.
See also Badass Lolita, Enfante Terrible, Laser Guided Tykebomb. Can overlap with some types of Super Soldier, especially those brought up in The Spartan Way. For someone who's a literal bomb see Why Am I Ticking.
Examples
Anime
- Chrona in Soul Eater
- Mewtwo in Pokemon, a genetically engineered mon who blew up an entire island research facility after becoming fed up with serving the arrogant Giovanni.
- Kirika Yuumura and Chloe from Noir were assassins trained from birth. As young teens, they have no problems with killing people. (In fact, Kirika was killing people at age five, some of them being Mireille's family.)
- See also the title characters of Gunslinger Girl.
- Also Pinochio, though the trope is inverted in that he is raised by terrorist leader Christiano as an assassin, but Christiano becomes attached to Pinochio as a surrogate son and tries to save him from the internal disputes that cause his own downfall.
- Fate Testarossa from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.
- Erstin from Mai-Otome is a rare example whose loyalty was not abused, and who never changed sides, though she was sorely tempted and it broke her heart.
- There are no fewer than three tykebombs in Mai-HiME, from two different factions. One escaped at an early age ( Natsuki), but the others are still active when the series unfolds....
- In the OVA Kite, the main villains have a pattern of adopting orphans, raising them, ritually molesting them, and deploying them as Tykebombs for hire. The protagonist is one of their creations, and it's shown that her master made her an orphan, while she watched. It's pretty ill.
- Eve from Black Cat, who was raised from childhood to become a bioweapon.
- The Big Bad from Princess Tutu kidnapped a human little girl named Claire and raised her as a Raven, telling her constantly that she was a monster and unworthy of love. Claire rebelled by creating her human identity, The Ojou Rue, and eventually found out about her own origins and switched sides completely.
- Every diclonius in Elfen Lied, despite being little girls, have enormous psychic power. This coupled with constant abuse and being ostracized from normal humans as well as a predisposition towards killing said humans (of course this may be a side effect of the abuse) creates a tragic and deadly experience for all.
- In the second season of Code Geass, Rollo Lamperouge turns out to be a tykebomb. His lack of experience beyond doing his duty (not to mention being rather psychotic) makes him easy pickings for being manipulated and suborned by the very person he was sent after.
- The Amestris goverment in Fullmetal Alchemist did this for an entire group of babies. They were raised to become the puppet ruler of the nation, and when they became old enough, they where injected with a Philosopher's stone. The survivor was named King Bradley, and made ruler of Amestris only subservient to the real ruler Father.
- Allenby Biarzury from G Gundam. She *hates* being a Tykebomb for her government, trained ever since she lost her parents, and actually falls for Domon Kasshu because he's the first one who sees her as a simple girl, not a human weapon.
- Akaya Kirihara from The Prince Of Tennis. His sempai aren't evil people *per se* (though dangerously close to the Knight Templar arechetype, as much as sports manga allows), but they encourage him to use his Unstoppable Rage-induced Devil Mode when he plays, since that makes him *very* hard to beat. In the anime, Kevin Smith is also a Tykebomb.
- In the Read Or Die TV series, Junior, the son of Nancy Makuhari and I-jun leader Ikkyu Soujun, was raised up to be a tykebomb by Joker of the British Library.
- Several of the Artificial Newtypes from the UC Gundam contunity, specially Four and Rosamia from Zeta Gundam and Elpe Puru from Gundam ZZ. For that matter, also the "Druggies" from Gundam SEED and Stellar Louissier, Sting Oakley and Auel Neidel from Gundam SEED Destiny.
- Cossette, from the Excel Saga anime, was raised to become an assassin after her mother's death, with the verbal abuse included. She gets better with help from the Great Will of the Universe that revives her mother. Later on, she becomes an assassin again because she likes the smell of blood
- Rei and Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Rei was intended to pilot EVA from the beginning among other things, while Asuka was recruited from a very young age.
- Flame Of Recca is almost a perfect illustration of why you should treat your Tyke Bombs properly. The Big Bad, Mori Kouran, secretly created dozens of genetically-engineered clones of his Dragon Kurei, spliced together with genes from his own daughter, Kurenai, in an attempt to create a servant that would have Kurei's terrifying flame powers, but that Kouran could go to sleep around without worrying that he would wake up with his face burnt off. Only two of his creations survived: A girl, Renge, and a boy, Aoi. Renge had flame powers and childlike simplicity, exactly what Kouran had been looking for, and so he adopted her as his daughter and spoiled her with praises. She remained loyal right through the end of the series, up until when Kouran killed her and absorbed her flame powers in order to give himself resistance to the protagonist's similar ones. Aoi, on the other hand, did not have flame powers, and so was considered a failure. He was treated like garbage, and although he did serve Kouran faithfully through most of the series (trying desparately to prove his worth), in the end The Power Of Friendship causes him to perform a Heel Face Turn.
- Several characters in Monster were orphans chosen for a psychological experiment attempting to create "perfect soldiers," which went catastrophically wrong. The titular character was even involved in two of them, having been born from parents who were paired off as the first stage of a eugenics experiment.
- Also, several characters from Gundam 00. More exactly: Setsuna F. Seiei, Allelujah Haptism, the three Trinity siblings (Johann, Michael, Nena) and Marie Parfasy aka Soma Peiris.
Comic Books
- The original members of the Runaways were literally bred to take over for their parents, to inherit the Earth and their parents' power. It did not go well.
- More literal tykebombs existed in the recent Sinestro Corps War in the Green Lantern comic books. The so-called "Children Of The White Lobe" are psychokinetic children raised from birth to be fanatical terrorist suicide bombers, and who make use of a mineral that becomes extremely explosive when stimulated by psionic powers such as their own—usually by swallowing a small chunk and then setting it off when the time is right.
- Current Batgirl Cassandra Cain was trained from a young age to be an assassin. She was horrified by her first kill, and ran away. She subsisted on the streets, until encountering Batman and his allies.
- The Strafenkinder in Books Of Magic, sort of. The Margrave entices young, unhappy boys with lies and gifts, give them a fancy uniform and neat badges. And then send them back to their parents to explode. A few of them can put themselvesback together afterwards, but the Margrave doesn't seem too concerned about those who don't.
- Michana Loomis in Nexus. Paradoxically, despite her older sister Stacy's best efforts to laser-guide her, she ended up saving Horatio from Stan in their final confrontation.
- Also Horatio's own daughters, since they were conceived by Ursula expressly for the purpose of inheriting Horatio's powers, and raised by her to be warriors. They ended being good anyway though, and saved Horatio from the Loomis sisters.
- As recently revealed in the Knights Of The Old Republic comics, Lucien Draay was raised by Haazen in this way as part of his revenge on Lucien's father Barrison.
Film
- Kovu from The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride.
- Possibly Darth Vader, in a convoluted way.
- Darth Maul is a less convoluted example, given that he was selected and trained from the time he could walk.
- And let's not forget the Grand Army of the Republic, an entire race of tykebombs.
- Syndrome threatened to do this to Jack-Jack Parr in The Incredibles, until the baby turned into a demon and beat the hell out of him.
Literature
- The setting of most of Ender's Game is essentially a Tykebomb factory.
- In the Discworld novel Sourcery, the wizard Ipslore the Red raised his son the "sourcerer" (a source of magical power, and much more powerful than wizards, who just manipulate it) to conquer the Unseen University, and then the world. Coin is expected to do this at the age of ten, and manages quite well before Rincewind persuades him to have a Heel Face Turn, and throw away the staff containing his father's spirit.
Live Action TV
- Adria in Stargate SG-1 is a genetically engineered child that the Ori made in order to have a messenger in the Milky Way without dealing directly with the Ancients. She was also engineered to not stay a child for long.
- Max and her sibs from Dark Angel were created with cat DNA mixed in and trained from birth to be soldiers before escaping and turning against their former "sponsors."
- The series Angel had Connor kidnapped only a few months after his birth and raised to his late teens in a hostile dimension, taught to become the ultimate opponent against his birth father.
- From the second season of Heroes, Elle Bishop, after her electrical powers manifested, was subjected to extreme electrical torture to see how much she could take. By her own father, no less. The end result is a sadistic and insane girl whose father sends her out in the field, referring to her as an "executioner."
- The Jem'Hadar, the Big Bad Dominion's elite shock troops from Star Trek Deep Space Nine are not quite a straight-up example as they're not necessarily mistreated by their creators nor are they ruled over irresponsibly and thus have pretty rock-solid loyalty. This loyalty, however, is achieved through an engineered, in-bred drug addiction; when they run out of that drug, they run the danger of playing this trope straight-up.
- The Remans of the Romulan Empire in The Movie Nemesis are a much more straight-up example, especially since they are essentially ruled by a kid.
- River Tam of Firefly was taken at an early age to be made into a Brainwashed And Crazy psychic Super Soldier. As with most Alliance dirty tricks, it didn't quite work as planned.
Video Games
- Cammy and the rest of Bison's "dolls" in the Street Fighter series.
- Metal Gear Solid does this a lot, although usually deals with the psychological repercussions, too. Raiden was 'six years old when he held his first AK', the three Snake triplets were all raised from their cloned conception to be extremely good soldiers, and in Portable Ops Gray Fox is revealed to have been raised in a twisted isolation tank as part of the 'Perfect Soldier Project'.
- For an example made by the good guys, the main character of the Halo series was trained as a warrior from the age of six.
- Actually, you have to go pretty far down the Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism to call ONI and the SPARTAN program "good", considering that the candidates were actually kidnapped as children, with fast-cloned duplicates left in their place (and doomed to die within a few years from clone degeneration), and subjected to enhancements that killed or crippled quite a few of them before they ever saw combat. Also, until the Covenant showed up, they were meant to be used against other humans...
- This is actually discussed a bit in the novels. The alternative to the Spartan program being all-out interstellar war, it's an example of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few. Though their methods were brutal and straddled the line between ethical and unethical, they really were created with the best intentions (to save lives), and so count as "good" in this troper's humble opinion.
- It's also worth noting that the side effects of the augmentation were something they worked hard to get rid of and later batches (So called Spartan III's) had 100% survival rates... at least until they where shipped off by the hundreds on one way suicide missions to buy mankind perhaps a few more months of survival. ONI really was morally ambiguous at best.
- Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII. He was created as a genetically engineered "clone" of an alien, the procedure killed his mother in childbirth, though she remained Not Quite Dead. He was then raised by Hojo, who he had no clue was his father, and grew up to be one of the world's most famed war heroes. Until he discovered his secret origins, though not all of them, and went batshit insane and decided to destroy the planet and become a God in the process. He damn near succeeded.
- Sephiroth's remnant, Kadaj, also qualifies. After Sephiroth's defeat, he wills this guy (and two others) into existence with the mentality and appearance of a teenager, for the purpose of insinuating Reunion and bringing Ol' Seph back from the Lifestream, and sacrificing his own body in the process. It's unkown how much Kadaj actually knew of what would happen. He was pretty much programmed to press for it to happen. He also wanted his mommy, which is kind of hard to explain. Loz and Yazoo also count, but they don't get as much screentime.
- Ramirez from Skies Of Arcadia was made by the Silver Civilization to hunt down the Moon Crystals by infiltrating the Valuan Armada. Unfortunately, being Raised By Wolves as he was, exposure to the world beyond proved too much to him and he ended up as the Battle Butler of charismatic Big Bad Galcian - the very man he was sent to thwart.
- Taken a bit further with Galcian's training and indoctrination of Ramirez (he was just young enough for this trope to still qualify). Somewhat subverted, as it appears that Galcian genuinely cares for and respects Ramirez, acting as a father figure.
- Considering what Ramirez did to his predecessor, who also acted fatherly towards him but eventually stabbed him in the back (and failed epically), one might say Galcian has a very good reason for doing that...
- In Bioshock, the main character turns out to be a Tykebomb.
- Though not raised from birth, the SeeDs in Final Fantasy VIII are generally trained from a relatively young age, with the youngest accepted students being only five years old and the oldest being fifteen. Ostensibly they're being trained as supercharged mercenaries, but in reality they're being prepared to wage war against the Sorceresses.
- Super Robot Wars Original Generation gave us The School, a facility that "reconditioned" children, both physically and mentally, to become Humongous Mecha pilots. Eventually, the high mortality rate(or an unknown number of subjects, only four survivors are known of) and the development of mecha training programs that could be safely used on normal people, The School was eventually closed down.
- JC Denton in Deus Ex is, if this editor recalls correctly, a clone raised from birth with fake memories of his parents and an accident in which they were killed, thusly; he was lead to believe he was orphaned. He starts as a pawn to UNATCO until his brother, Paul (having already defected), confronts him at an airbase and persuades him to examine the details more closely. JC does so, and in the process is labeled a traitor due to his actions. He then rescues Paul from eventual demise at the hands of a killswitch, turns on his former masters with the help of what remains of the Illuminati, unifies the Hong Kong Triads (who aid him), and canonically merges with Helios (in place of Bob Page, who was late to the party, and Helios was impatient) to restore order and usher in a new, enlightened age.
- Jaffar from Fire Emblem 7 was allegedly found as an infant sleeping atop a pile of corpses, and groomed to be a powerful assassin by the local assassin's guild. Nino was probably a failed attempt at making one of these as well, although she turned out to be too softhearted, and in fact is who triggers Jaffar's humanity and his Heel Face Turn.
- Cynder, from The Legend of Spyro almost fits this. Her egg was stolen by the Dark Master's forces before her birth and she was raised within his evil influence, given seriously souped up powers and an adult form and sent out to help the Drk Master take over the world. And she is a total Bad Ass.
- Interetsingly, the "Fury" attacks of Spyro (and Cynder in the third game) make them pretty much elemental tykebombs.
Web Comics
- Shade Tail in El Goonish Shive
 was created with this in mind, but the indoctrination didn't take, and she eventually escaped as a total innocent with Shape Shifting powers.
Western Animation
Real Life
- An English king (probably Edward III) is quoted as having said, "To train a longbowman, start with his grandfather."
- Edward III was also a Tyke Bomb himself, forced to fight for the father he hated at the age of twelve, crowned by rebels at the age of fifteen. When he was eighteen, he dismissed the courtiers who had done this to him with extreme prejudice.
- Tragic examples: All too many real-life Child Soldiers and mercenaries...
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