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There are few men with more blood on their hands than me. None, that I know of. The Bloody-Nine, they call me, my enemies, and there's a lot of 'em. Always more enemies, and fewer friends. Blood gets you nothing but more blood. It follows me now, always, like my shadow, and like my shadow I can never be free of it. I should never be free from it. I've earned it. I've deserved it. I've sought it out. Such is my punishment.
Once he was but a Proud Warrior Race Guy, content with nothing more than dreams of crushing his enemies skulls 'neath his jewel-encrusted boots. But he has grown. He has embraced the spiritual side of his culture that his fellows have long ignored. He tries to teach, but they won't listen!
A prophet without honor in his own land, he has become a Warrior Poet!
Examples:
- Miyamoto Musashi is a famous Real Life example. Apart from being a swordsman, he painted and scuplted, practiced calligraphy and studied Zen Buddhism.
- Cao Cao from Romance Of The Three Kingdoms is a perfect example. Not only did he conquer most of Northern and Central China but was a famous poet that is credited today for starting the Jian'an style of poetry in China.
- King David of The Bible composed much of the book of Psalms, in his free time from giant slaying and country rebuilding. He's also famous for taking his clothes off and dancing happily once he conquered Jerusalem.
- Worf, of Star Trek The Next Generation, sometimes.
- G'Kar, of Babylon Five, post-season three epiphany. While he has a difficult time teaching his people, he is highly respected and his book becomes one of their holy books, painstakingly reproduced by hand (complete with a certain circular mark on page 83).
- Kwai-Chang Caine, of Kung Fu
- Teal'c, of Stargate SG-1
- The Brunnen-G of Lexx are always described as "a race of warrior poets", but don't seem to be examples of this trope; they're just warriors who happen to write a lot of poetry between wars.
- Video game example: Thrall in Warcraft III.
- Most of the traits that make up a Warrior Poet also exist in Destruction of The Endless from Neil Gaiman's series The Sandman. He abandoned his role as overseer of destruction to try his hand at being creative. Like writing poetry and painting pictures... really really badly.
- Dinobot from Beast Wars achieved Warrior Poethood in the episode which ended in his Heroic Death, even managing to be responsible for the rise of humanity by inspiring the primitive humanoids how to defend themselves using the stone axe he created to defend himself at the very end. Of course the rise of humanity also brought us Paris Hilton and reality TV, so it's sort of a mixed legacy
- Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid is a particularly schizophrenic example - one moment he's gunning down countless enemies with brutal efficiency, and the next moment he's discussing the meaning of life, morality, and nature, while simultaneously agonising about the agony of being a soldier.
- The Eldar of Warhammer 40000 exhibit signs of this trope, but here the order rebelled against was not so much dishonorable or brutish war as decadence.
- The entire Protoss race from Star Craft, a partial Expy of the Eldar, embody this ideal, having embraced a rigid quasi-religious collectivist social order based on self tempering, personal honor, and obedience, to escape a tumultous war-filled past. This leads to a peculiar view of warfare, wherein "modern" mass-destructive weapons have been largely shunned in favor of armies of melée combatants and machines of war whose purpose at heart is something else (the few examples to the contrary being regarded as abominable).
- Logen Ninefingers from The First Law, as in the quote at the top of the page. He was a Conan-esque adventurer in the past, but in the actual story is a tragic figure hounded by old feuds.
- The main villain from the film The Proposition, Arthur Burns, despite being a violent and dangerous sociopath, has a wonderfully eloquent and deep outlook on life. He is just as capable of looking off into the sunset and quoting Burrough as he is capable of torturing and murdering innocent people.
- The Proposition is full of such characters. Captain Stanley is a Shakespeare-quoting badass played by the mighty Ray Winstone, and Jellon Lamb is a bounty hunter of "no little education." Considering that Nick Cave wrote the screenplay, it's only natural that everyone around is going to be super-literate.
- Maglor from The Silmarillion, who, after spending the better part of the book (somewhat reluctantly) engaged in wholesale slaughter of innocent bystanders in an effort to steal back the eponymous Silmarils, decides to throw the one he eventually gets into the sea and take up a repentant existence Walking The Earth and singing about how sorry he is.
- Wrex of Mass Effect, who is surprisingly philosophical for your average reptillian Heroic Sociopath Bounty Hunter.
- Vivec from Morrowind is technically considered to be a poet. He is author of The 36 lessons of Vivec (in-game books) which are poetic and extremely cryptic stories of his greatness. The Lessons sometimes break the fourth wall in very subtle ways but mostly they just confuse you. However since Micheal Kirkbride, who wrote the Leasons, did not write Vivec’s dialogue Vivec seems way too plain spoken for a poet when you meet him in-game. In fact, his title actually is "Warrior Poet."
- Gurney Halleck in Dune is a literal example. He is a musician and philosopher with seemingly infinite supply of witticisms for any occasion. He is also a remorseless killer, perfectly willing to cut any Harkonnen he comes across (or anyone who gets on the wrong side of prince Leto for that matter) into pieces.
- Tyr Anasazi in Andromeda. Often seen reading Ayn Rand while on bridge duty. The whole of Nietzschean society was meant to be this by their progenitor.
- In War And Peace, a near-death experience turns Prince Andrei from being just a normal Proud Warrior Race Guy to a Warrior Poet.
- When you consider that it was (and still is) a requirement for all Greek men to serve in the military, then all the ancient Greek philosophers (Socrates, Aristotle, etc.) and playwrights (Euripides, Sophocles, etc.) were WarriorPoets. And since the Greeks fought eachother all the time, the image of the "old philosopher" probably means the ones who survived that long were probably pretty good at fighting. To sum up: Socrates probably could have kicked your ass.
- General Baneus from Terry Pratchett's The Carpet People.
- Adam Sandler's character, Zohan, is a crazily competent Mossad agent who decides to leave war behind and choose the ambiguously gay profession of hair stylist
- Along similar lines but done seriously, Daniel Silva's series character Gabriel Allon is an Israeli spy and assassin who when on Ten Minute Retirement has the delicate profession of art restorer.
- Gennosuke Kouga from Basilisk is not only a mighty swordsman who doesn't even need to brandish his blade to kill you, he's also a talented flautist and dancer.
- Piandao from Avatar The Last Airbender is a borderline example. He's knowledgable of many art like calligraphy, painting, and landscaping, but apparently practices them because it helps to make him a better swordsman.
- D'Argo from Farscape, with the ultimate goal of becoming a farmer. It's his life long dream.
- Bruce Lee graduated with a degree in Philosophy.
- Karel managed to turn into one of these after Fire Emblem 7.
- Kuroi Sabato from Blade Of The Immortal was one of these.
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