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The minstrel boy to the war has gone,
In the ranks of death you'll find him;
His father's sword he hath girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him.
— Thomas Moore, The Minstrel Boy.
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!
For your own sake, do NOT mistake him for going soft. The “Warrior” part of the name is there for a reason. He has lost none of his edge from his rowdier days, and will not hesitate to make use of his martial skills when all other options have been exhausted. He merely asks questions before he shoots.
Compare Martial Pacifist, Cultured Bad Ass and Wicked Cultured.
See also Real Men Wear Pink, a more specific example in which having “girly” interests does not make a character less Bad Ass.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
Comic Books
- 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.
- In a twisted, delusional, batshit crazy way? Just read Rorschach’s journal...
- Colossus of the X Men, when written right, is a poetic soul and more than capable warrior.
- Thorgal inversion : he started off as a skald (Viking bard), then got into the warrior biz (mostly against his will, which he will never let you forget.
Film
- Katsumoto from The Last Samurai is made of this trope.
- 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 Burroughs 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.
- 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.
- Broken Sword, one of the three Zhao master assassins of the 2002 film Hero, is a calligraphy artist and a poetic philosopher in addition to being deadly with a blade.
- The last lines of Braveheart: “They fought like warrior-poets. They fought like Scotsmen.”
- Dennis Hopper described as this Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.
Literature
- Subverted in Terry Pratchett's book of Discworld, The Wee Free Men - Feegles are mostly Boistrous Bruisers, but to them words cut deeper than any blade. Thus...Gonnagles.
- 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 also a famous poet who is credited today for starting the Jian’an style of poetry in China.
- Other characters display this as a more important part of their back-story, as well. For example, Lu Meng of the Wu Kingdom was once something closer to a Glory Hound or The Brute, when his superiors berated him for it. Unlike most brutes, however, he actually took it upon himself to become a scholar as well as a warrior, and achieved far greater fame for his efforts.
- King David in The Bible composes much of the book of Psalms in his free time from giant slaying and country-rebuilding. In fact, the only reason He Who Slew Hundreds of Thousands has an opportunity to become king is that the music he played could make you cry and the previous King had to hear him. He’s also famous for taking his clothes off and dancing happily once he brought the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem.
- Samson tried to get in on the action quite a bit earlier, in the midst of a riddle game. Notable in that his poem actually rhymes — which, in the context of the times, may mean that it sucked. (Hebrew poetry was normally based on parallelism of content, rather than rhyme.)
- English Bibles have it as “Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet.” But did it rhyme in Hebrew?
- Didn't.
- Ancient Hebrew poetry focused on parallelism not rhyme. Which makes it translatable as poetry. However it probably did suck in the original; for that matter it isn't that good in translation. The impression I always got of Samson was of a Boisterous Bruiser.
- 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 acquires into the sea and take up a repentant existence Walking The Earth and singing about how sorry he is.
- 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 Duke Leto for that matter) into pieces.
- In War And Peace, a near-death experience turns Prince Andrei from being just a normal Proud Warrior Race Guy to a Warrior Poet.
- 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.
- General Baneus from Terry Pratchett’s The Carpet People.
- Daniel Hagman, of Sharpe, is the best marksman in his unit but is also a talented musician, singing for the other men (in one case as the man dies) and occasionally playing the guitar or some equivalent. Of course, this was mostly because his TV actor is primarily a folk singer and wrote or arranged most of the music for the show...
- Incidentally, Gurney Halleck does exactly the same thing (singing to a dying man) in Dune... coincidence?
- Lieutenant-Colonel Girdwood, on the other hand, thought of himself as a warrior-poet but proved to be incompetent in both areas.
- Subverted in the sci-fi novel Use Of Weapons by Ian M. Banks. The protagonist Cheradenine Zakalwe wants to be a poet as well as a soldier, but all his efforts are amateurish. In a particular irony the novel is bookended by the (much better) poetic efforts of his co-workers.
- Worth noting is his behavior after he realized he was a better warrior than a poet. There was a nasty slave-driver who liked to cut off people’s tongues. Right after Zakalwe left the planet he was on at the time, the guy’s corpse was discovered with a look of horror on his face, and several human tongues and the paper on which Zakalwe was trying to write poetry shoved down his throat.
- In a similar vein, Brandark Brandarkson from David Weber’s War God series. A hradani with all that entails but also a well read scholar and a decent musician (plays the balalaika specifically). However his singing voice is atrocious and his attempts at poetry don’t rise above the equivalent of witty limericks.
- Karsa Orlong in Malazan Book of the Fallen, who is a great sculptor.
- The Executioner. Soldier-turned-vigilante Mack Bolan is very well read. Each novel in the series begins with a couple of quotes from a literary work, then a quote from Bolan’s journal giving his own take on it. His favourite book is Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, as Bolan often sees himself as “tilting at windmills”.
- David Zindell’s Requiem for Homo Sapiens has the Order of Warrior-Poets. Every year they clone billions of children, whose educational process includes regular fights to the death — either via combat, or poetry competitions. Each “graduating class” numbers in the hundreds, if that.
- “Death Star” has Nova Stihl, Imperial prison guard, trooper, and master of martial arts, who has Battle Precognition. He’s also got a sense for fair play and likes training people. And the stash of illicit holograms under his bunk? Dissertations on philosophy. He doesn’t think of himself as a particularly deep thinker in the start of the book, though.
- Brandark Brandarkson from David Weber’s War God series wants to be one of these badly. He’s got the Warrior part down; it’s the Poet part that eludes him. His attempts at poetry are mediocre at best and while a gifted scholar and skilled musician but the less said about his singing voice the better, which is a problem when coming from a society where poets are of the bardic tradition.
- Jonathan Hemlock of The Eiger Sanction. Assassin and art historian.
- In GK Chesterton’s The Ballad of the White Horse, there is not only Elf the minstrel (“whose hand was heavy on the sword, though light upon the string...”), but King Alfred himself.
- Harun ar-Rashid in The Arabian Nights . And probably in Real Life too.
- Nearly all Middle Eastern royalty had some elements of this trope. Ottoman Sultans in particular were known not only for their abilities on the battlefield but for their patronage and in many cases their participation in great art. Suleyman the Magnificent was a proficient metalworker, and most rulers after him decided to master a craft as well.
- How did we get this far and not mention Aragorn and Faramir from The Lord Of The Rings?
- In the same vein as Aragorn and Faramir, Al'Lan Mandragoran (a.k.a. Lan) in the Wheel Of Time series is a Warrior Poet. It's almost an Informed Ability, since there is exactly one scene in the series in which he recites poetry, but given that he's rightfully a king one would expect him to have a certain amount of cultured education.
Live Action TV
- 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, although amusingly, despite a fairly philosophical mindset, his cultural interests mainly center on cheesy Tau'ri Sci-Fi and Action movies.
- The Brunnen-G of Lexx are described as “a race of romantic warriors” or “romantic dreamers”, who led the rest of humanity to victory against a civilization of planet-sized insects — all while sporting beehive hairdos and dazzlingly intricate rainbow-colored bodysuits. (Curiously, the only Brunnen-G poet we meet, Poet Man, is a non-conformist who wears drab, colorless clothes and a plain hairstyle.)
- And one of the Divine Shadow brains was a Genocidal Tyrant Poet:
His Shadow: As a result of the fall the evil section of my brain was destroyed. Only my poet half remains. I am at peace. Fair lady, would you care to hear a sonnet?
- 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.
- D’Argo from Farscape, with the ultimate goal of becoming a farmer. It’s his life-long dream.
- For a while, 'Warrior-Poet' took pride of place as the main word used to describe Stephen Colbert in the opening credits for The Colbert Report. (Others include “Megamerican” and “Grippy.”) Other than that, he has very little to do with this trope.
- Spike, from Angel and Buffy. He spends most of the series as either a big tough bad guy or trying to deny his Heel Face Turn. In the penultimate episode of Angel, however, he spends his last evening before the Final Battle drinking and talking big — acting as if he’s trying to start a bar-brawl — but it’s all to work up his courage to get up and read his poetry to the audience at the bar. He actually was a poet before he became a vampire, and found himself with the nickname “William the Bloody” because his poetry was so “bloody awful”.
- Ironically, the 21st-century crowd applauded the same poem that his 19th-century critics dismissed as “bloody awful.” Either tastes have changed or everyone at open mic night was plastered.
- Firefly. In “War Stories,” Shepherd Book who may be something of a warrior poet himself mentions the writings of Shan Yu.
Simon: “Shan Yu, the psychotic dictator?”
Book: “Fancied himself quite the warrior poet. Wrote volumes on war, torture, the limits of human endurance. He said, ‘Live with a man forty years; share his house, his meals, speak on every subject. Then tie him up, and hold him over a volcano's edge. And on that day, you will finally meet the man.’”
Simon: “What if you don’t live near a volcano?”
Book: “I suspect he was being poetical.”
Simon: “Sadistic crap legitimized by florid prose.”
- Sadistic gangster Adelei Niska turns out to be a big fan of Shan Yu, needless to say.
- It seems that a philosophical streak is a job requirement for the position of an Operative.
- Oh, and Mal read a poem (try not to faint). That counts for something, doesn’t it?
- Hawk from Spencer For Hire and A Man Called Hawk certainly qualify. He plays the Mbila, plays an excellent game of chess and often waxes philosophical with his mentor, all while fighting crime, Shaft style. Did I mention he’s played by Capt. Sisko himself, Avery Brooks?
Newspaper Comics
- Parodied constantly in Calvin And Hobbes as Calvin treats all snowball fights as epic wars. One time, he gave a speech about the importance of craftsmanship while meticulously assembling a snowball from just the right kinds of snow (and signing it) before
throwing it getting steamrollered by Suzie, who had used the time to amass a massive snowball arsenal. Another time, he actually consecrated his snowball before throwing it:
Oh lovely snowball, packed with care,
Smack a head that's unaware!
Then with freezing ice to spare,
Melt and soak through underwear!
Fly straight and true, hit hard and square!
This, oh snowball, is my prayer.
Tabletop Games
- 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.
- Werewolf: the Apocalypse had the Fianna, which were a tribe of Warrior Poets in what was already a species of Proud Warrior Race Guys. They supposedly spawned the first werewolf bard in all of existence. They’re also just a little bit Oirish.
- Speaking of that “werewolf bard”, it’s actually one of the five Auspices — the Galliard, born under the gibbous moon, who starts the game with the second-highest Rage rating of all five Auspices, but whose Gifts tend towards communication, inspiration, and passion. They reappear in Werewolf The Forsaken as Cahaliths, and while there are still bardic elements, they’re more regarded as prophets.
Video Games
- Thrall in Warcraft III. One of the Expanded Universe novels contains a Fictional Document which is basically a heroic poem he writes about his own father.
- The backstory for the Tarth species in Deadlock: Planetary Conquest includes a Tarth named Guh, who lived as a warrior. After he received what he believed to be a mortal wound, he resigned himself to death...until he looked up at one of the planet's moons and saw movement. He regained his will to live and went on to become a famous astronomer. A statue in his honour depicts him impaled on a spear, looking at the sky through a telescope.
- 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 agonizing about the agony of being a soldier.
- The entire Protoss race from Star Craft embody this ideal, having embraced a rigid quasi-religious collectivist social order based on self tempering, personal honor, and obedience, to escape a tumultuous 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 mêlée combatants and machines of war whose purpose at heart is something else (the few examples to the contrary being regarded as abominable).
- Wrex of Mass Effect, who is surprisingly philosophical for your average reptilian Heroic Sociopath Bounty Hunter. Ashley Williams as well, in what is actually a quite literal example: she really does quote poetry. Classical poetry as a matter of fact, and she gets the quotation right, too. She also examines her own religious and philosophical leanings and the impact that space travel and aliens have on the theoretical existence of god.
- There is a Krogan Warrior reciting love poems in the second game.
- 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. And yet, one of these Lessons detail how he poked an evil god that had betrayed him into a crevice of fire with his spear. 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.”
- Blood Knight Karel managed to turn into one of these after Fire Emblem 7. In the prequel, Fire Emblem 6, he’s a calm and philosophical swordsman, a far cry from his bloodthirsty younger self.
- Colonel Corazon Santiago shows signs of this in Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri. As with all faction leaders, the game occasionally gives quotes from her, ostensibly excerpts from books she’s written, and while her philosophical side is very military-oriented and bleak, it’s also perfectly suited for the Death World she and her followers have landed on.
- Forde from Fire Emblem 8 is one of Those Two Cavaliers and a very accomplished painter.
- Genesis of Crisis Core, seriously if his army didn’t consist entirely of clones of himself, they’d be wondering what exactly to make of his orders which consisted entirely of quote from his favorite play.
- In Dissidia, nearly all of the ten protagonists come off as this, since they all got a wise side to share.
Western Animation
- 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.
- Also, not content with writing his own prose, Dinobot also ripped off a few bits of Hamlet for use in his dramatic death speech. Who knows what this did to a generation of middle school English students.
- Piandao from Avatar The Last Airbender is a borderline example. He’s knowledgeable about many arts like calligraphy, painting, and landscaping, but apparently practices them because it helps to make him a better swordsman.
- Bow, The One Guy and Straight Arrow from She Ra Princess Of Power, is a bard in his free time and loves playing his harp.
- An extremely literal example: While everyone in Visionaries had Voluntary Shapeshifting powers, some of them also had magic staves that contained a kind of unique, one-use battle genie. These spirits were released using, of all things, rhyming couplets. So when the Blood Knight wanted to wreck a castle, he could summon a monster by holding up his staff and yelling:
By nature's hand, by craft, by art,
what once was one now fly apart!
Real Life
- The book that has been in consistant publication longer than any other book in human history is a book of poetry lasting only thirteen chapters. This book is also the most important book on war ever written, "The Art of War" attributed to Sun Tzu who made his living as a mercenary general.
- Miyamoto Musashi is a famous Real Life example. Apart from being a swordsman, he painted and sculpted, practiced calligraphy and studied Zen Buddhism.
- Yagyu Jubei...ah, Hell, the big three, grand father (Sekishusai), father (Munenori), and son (Jubei) fit this trope. They mastered the sword, but also took time to write books on the Zen in sword, and Munenori was a politician, even if an Evil Chancellor.
- As pictured above, traditional Japanese culture is known for demanding samurai to be good at Ikebana (floral arrangement) and poetry and stuff.
- At it's height, the Samurai caste expected their warriors to be proficient in the arts as well as warfare; and the ideal was summed up as "Bun Bu Ryo Do", literally "literary arts, military arts, both ways", or more loosely "The pen and the sword in accord". Samurai were among the most cultured and literate classes in pre-Meiji Japanese culture. The tea ceremony and rock garden also had their roots in Samurai culture.
- Similiarly, in old Ireland, you couldn’t be a great warrior unless you played the harp and mastered fidchell (an ancient Irish board game, somewhat similar to chess).
- Norsemen, similarly, got great social recognition for being good skalds as well as warriors.
- The mediæval knights of Europe were also expected to be skilled at poetry, chess, and dancing, as well as following a strict code of chivalry. This may have had something to do with the fact that European knights were also nobles — such pastimes were probably taught to all noblemen regardless.
- Another Real Life example: Irishman Joseph Mary Plunkett, executed for rebellion in 1916. He wrote “The Presence of God”:
I see His blood upon the rose, // And in the stars the glory of His eyes; // His body gleams amid eternal snows, // His tears fall from the skies. // I see His face in every flower; // The thunder, and the singing of the birds // Are but His voice; and, carven by His power, // Rocks are His written words. // All pathways by His feet are worn; // His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea; // His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn; // His cross is every tree. //
- Real Life example: Bruce Lee graduated from university with a degree in Philosophy.
- And wrote a book about the philosophy behind his martial art.
- Bad Ass points for dictating the whole book to his wife, while completely immobile recovering from an injury from winning the Kumite.
- Another Real Life example: Roald Dahl, Ace Pilot, as well as famous author.
- Patton. Anyone remember in the movie? “Through the travail of ages, midst the pomp and toils of war, have I fought and strove and perished, countless times amongst the stars.
- Saint Ignatius Loyola, along with the fellow founding members of the Society of Jesus. Aka Jesuits. He starts as a Genius Bruiser, finishes as the leader of a whole league of Badass Preachers.
- 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 Warrior Poets. (In fact, Aeschylus' gravestone spends more time talking about his military successes than about his multi-award-winning literary career.) And since the Greeks fought each other 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.
- In fact, Socrates makes note of his military service as part of his defense during his trial, although whether or not he could have kicked your ass is unknown. He almost certainly could have questioned you to within an inch of your life, however.
- Or drunk you under the table.
- Real Life: many Irish rebels were also poets, most notably Patrick Pearse and James Stephens.
- Cyrano de Bergerac. Composing poems in the middle of a sword fight ought to count for something.
- The fictional version of Cyrano, at least, is perhaps the epitome of this trope.
- The fictional version? The real Cyrano was a famous writer, a fearsome duelist (in a time when duels had been made illegal) who was so dangerous with a sword that his friends nicknamed him the Devil of Bravery and he fought alongside d’Artagnan: yep, THE d’Artagnan.
- Though most famous as a warrior King Richard The Lionheart was also a poet; though only two of his poems survive, his routrenge, “Ja Nuns Hons Pris“ is well-known to connoisseurs of mediæval music.
- In the Befreiungskrieg, the German “War of Liberation” from Napoleon’s domination, the poet Theodor Körner left a successful play-writing career in Vienna to join the famous Freikorps of Adolf von Lützow; he wrote and sang poems for his fellow soldiers, accompanying himself on the guitar. These poems were collected posthumously by his father in the anthology Lyre and Sword.
- Most poetry, drama, and music of the Aztecs were written by the battle hardened warriors.
- George Gordon Lord Byron, poet and playwright, who took up arms for the cause of Greek independence and died while drilling Alpine troops at Missolonghi.
- Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, two of the best known War Poets in history. Both were decorated for heroism; Sassoon was arguably more Badass, and certainly luckier (he survived the war and lived to a ripe old age; Owen died so close to the end of it that his mother got the telegram as the armistice bells were ringing).
- Mao Zedong/Mao Tse-tung is now more known for being the founder/leader/dictator of the People's Republic of China. He also wrote quite a few poems during the period of conflict between the Communists and the Nationalist government. Wikipedia article here.
- No one mentioned Tupac Shakur? Seriously? Or any numerous other rappers who have been in multiple shoot-outs and fights with police and rival gangs? The image of Hip-hop culture makes it seem like a modern real-life version of this trope in a lot of ways.
- Egil Skallagrimsson of Iceland was famous as both a fighter (a berserker in fact) and a poet. He subverts this trope somewhat, in that while he had a caring and sentimental side, he also had a terrible temper and sometimes behaved very rashly.
- Emperor Marcus Aulerius of Ancient Rome was more famous for his philosophical thoughts then for his warlike enterprises.
- Winston Churchill: As a soldier, he served with distinction in India, Sudan, and the Second Boer War; he also fought on the front line in World War One despite being a battalion commander. He also led Britain in World War II. As a man of arts and letters, he was a decent amateur painter, an accomplished memoirist, and a good historian, writing the all-encompassing (if a bit dated) History of the English-Speaking Peoples, for which he won a Nobel Prize for Literature. He also was an accomplished wit and a master of oratory (which helped him lead Britain during World War II).
- Several eighteenth and nineteenth century military and naval officers. Including King Frederick the Great .
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