Many characters wear an insignia that denotes them as possessing some kind of authority, such as police badge, or belonging to a certain organisation, such as a unit patch. When such a character has been defeated, the victor will sometimes remove the insignia from them.
If the defeated character is dead, then the insignia might become a Creepy Souvenir. If the character is still alive, then this is an act of humiliation; showing that the character is not worthy of the authority the insignia bestows, or that the victor holds the group the insignia represents in contempt. If this happens to The Hero, expect them to take back the insignia after a climatic battle with the character who took it.
After removing the insignia, the victor may contemptuously toss it aside, to indicate the authority no longer has power here; toss it to one of their minions, perhaps mockingly appointing them the new authority; or pin it on themselves, to remind others of their victory.
This often happens when two characters are duelling to become a leader or ruler, with the winner taking the loser's crown and putting it on their own head in an Awesome Moment of Crowning.
If insignia is taken as evidence of the defeat/kill, then see Bringing Back Proof.
A subtrope of Battle Trophy. May also cross over with Kill Tally if a character has a habit of doing this for every foe he defeats. Compare Insignia Rip-Off Ritual, in which the person removing the insignia usually has the right to remove it, and which does not normally involve a fight beforehand.
In Real Life, this often happens during wars, with the victors taking flags, unit patches, etc. off defeated enemies. Only fictional examples need to be listed here.
Examples:
- Afro Samurai runs on this trope. The Number One Headband certifies you as the best fighter in the world, and the Number Two Headband certifies you as the only person allowed to challenge for the Number One Headband. Obtaining either, therefore, requires you to fight whoever's wearing it, kill them, and take the headband from their corpse. A flashback in the first episode shows Afro's father being killed for the Number One Headband, right in front of Afro; the series itself revolves around Afro trying to avenge him father and claim the Number One Headband while fending off the countless people trying to take the Number Two Headband from him.
- Initial D: Seiji Iwaki does this to teams defeated by Emperor in Second Stage. He demands their stickers, then cuts them in half and places them upside down on his Lancer Evo's spoiler. He claims he does so in reminiscence of fighter pilots who'd tally their kills on their planes' chassis.
- Overlord (2012): Clementine takes the guild rank insignias from the adventurers she murders, enough that her bra is actually made solely out of the things
◊.
- In Ranma ½, the Dojo Destroyer is a huge man who specializes in challenging various martial arts dojos. When victorious, he takes the defeated dojos' signs and uses them as weapons against his next target.
- Rurouni Kenshin: Isurugi Raijuta brings up the tradition that he who challenges and defeats the master of a sword dojo can do whatever he wants with the dojo's sign: after defeating Maekawa Miyauchi, sensei of Chūetsu-ryū, he orders his protege Tsukayama Yutarō to take the dojo's sign down and burn it—enraging Kenshin, Kaoru, and Yahiko, who were visiting the dojo of Kaoru's family friend on that day.
- Disney Ducks Comic Universe: One Uncle Scrooge comic has a Gentleman Thief steal the Beagle Boys' prison numbers as souvenirs while he's robbing Scrooge, prompting Scrooge and the Beagle Boys to pull an Enemy Mine.
- Disturbing the Peace: After Diablo and his bikers capture Jim Dillon and his deputy Matt, Diablo remove's Dillon's town marshal badge and pins it on his own vest.
- In Ghosts of War, the squad ambushes a German-captured jeep and kills the occupants. Tappert not only loots everything of value off the bodies (including their gold teeth),but also cuts the S.S.insignia off their uniforms; seemingly as a souvenir.
- In Lone Hero, Cop Killer Bart takes removes the badge from every law enforcement officer he kills and wears them clipped to his belt as trophies.
- Twisted in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Throughout the movie Khan wears a Starfleet emblem on a necklace. It isn't seen until he takes over the Reliant, so one has to assume that he stole it from one of the crewman that he marooned on Ceti Alpha VI, perhaps even Captain Terrell himself. Furthermore, it's damaged to serve as a reflection of Khan himself. He stands in clothing made of rags while Kirk stands in an immaculate uniform.
- In Superman II, Ursa displays a penchant for collecting and wearing symbols and badges from the law enforcement and military officers she kills.
- Transformers: Rise of the Beasts: Scourge, as part of his 'evil big game hunter' concept, makes a habit of tearing off the insignia of every Transformer he kills and welding them to his own body as a trophy, akin to the license plates on the similarly evil truck in Duel.
- Matador Series: Participants in the Musashi Flex, an underground galaxy-wide street-fighting circuit, are required to keep an identification tag somewhere on their persons, to be handed over to or taken by a fight's winner as proof. Lazlo Mourn, protagonist of the prequel novel The Musashi Flex, keeps his clipped to his pubic hair just to piss off anybody who beats him.
- The Mandalorian: Ahsoka takes Din Djarin's pauldron, bearing his mudhorn sigil, as proof that she defeated him. Though, in reality, they were faking his death because they were working together.
- The Wire: During season 4, Snoop is shown to want to take Creepy Souvenirs from people she and Chris kill, including a Yankee hat from a New York dealer, and the badge of a security guard, which she had already taken out of the house, when Chris takes it and throws it away.
- BattleTech: It's sometimes noted in fiction that capturing the battle standard of a particularly prestigious unit is often a mark of pride for the forces that do so. Having proof that you faced a force like Wolf's Dragoons, one of the Sword of Light regiments, or a khan's Keshik (Honor Guard) in battle and emerged victorious gives one quite the rep.
- In Deadlands, Stone, the Big Bad servitor of Death, wears a duster covered in the badges he's taken from the chests of the dead lawmen he's killed.
- In Princess Maker 2, one of the combat-oriented training classes you can put your adopted hopeful-princess is a Fencing school. There is a random chance that an adventurer seeking infamy will come to challenge the school, in hopes of taking the school's sign for glory. If they beat your daughter in combat, true to word, they'll take the sign and classes will be cancelled for a few weeks.
- Teen Titans: In “Betrothed”, Blackfire breaks out of jail and takes over Tamaran, installing herself as the Grand Ruler and trying to force Starfire into an arranged marriage with a hideous blob alien. At her would-be wedding, Starfire challenges and defeats her sister, then takes the Grand Ruler’s crown from her and puts it on her own head before declaring, “The challenge is complete! Tamaran has a new Grand Ruler!”
