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"A little fight in ya...I like that."
In fiction, most villains are used to dealing with the Distressed Damsel. They scream, they're easily subdued by grasping their Standard Female Grab Area, they're generally easy to dominate. This can get rather dull if it goes on for long enough.
As a result, the villain tends to be pleasantly surprised when he captures an Action Girl and she puts up a fight. Oh, he'll still hold her hostage. He'll still kill her when the time comes. But when she spits in his face, kicks him in the crotch and insults him with a witty rejoinder, well, he can't help but shake his head (perhaps smirking as he does so) and say, "I'll give you this. You Got Spunk."
That last word tends to vary, since "spunk" is occasionally used as slang for... a certain substance. "Moxie" is a good substitute, as are "fight" and "spirit". This is meant to be a compliment, because hey, we all "love a woman with spirit," but it usually comes off as a rather condescending Stock Phrase.
These days, this isn't strictly a man-to-woman trope. It has a much darker and creepier connotation when used in the middle of a rape scene. It may also be used in less extreme situations by someone who's not a villain, merely a Grumpy Bear, in which case they'll make it a backhanded compliment by adding " I hate spunk." Not that real villains can't hate spunk, too.
For the non-rapey version, please see " I Love You Because I Can't Control You". " You Got Spunk" is more " I will love you because it is hard to control you", and unsurprisingly, has the less pleasant implications. Compare Will Not Be a Victim (for the Action Girl's perspective) and I Have You Now, My Pretty (for the villain's perspective). Contrast No Guy Wants An Amazon and No Guy Wants To Be Chased.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Shikamaru in Naruto when commenting on Temari: "I forgot: this girl is a spunky one. I hate spunky."
- Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Shmion to Rika: "Oh you still got some strength left? Well, it would be no fun if you didn't!"
- At some point late in the Gravitation manga, Mr. K says to Yaoi Fangirl Rage as they have each other at gunpoint: "Heh. I like your spirit... spattered across the pavement!" His wife stops him from hurting anybody by hurting him. She's that kind of woman.
- The Hentai series Spunky Knight manages to use both definitions of spunky for its main character.
- Ranma 1/2 says Akane has spunk.
Films — Animation
- In Disney's Hercules, a centaur tells a captured Megara, "I like 'em fiery."
- In The Jungle Book, Shere Khan says to Mowgli, "You have spirit for one so small."
- In the Aladdin sequel the Return of Jafar, Jafar tells a captured Jasmine who's face he has grabbed: "Mmmm such spirit." In response Jasmine tries to bite him.
Films — Live-Action
- The Dark Knight
- In Batman Begins, a young Bruce Wayne was told this by mob boss Falcone.
- Happens near the end of Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood; while trapped in an elevator with the Leprechaun the Final Girl smashes him with a dislodged light fixture and proceeds to electrocute him with one of the cables. Afterward the Leprechaun, pretty much unfazed, states "I like her" while she flees the scene.
- Though not specifically voiced, the villain in Live Free Or Die Hard is obviously impressed by Lucy when she uses the phone call to her father to calmly inform him how many men he has left to kill.
- In Stuart Little 2:
Snowbell: (to Stuart) You've got guts, kid! Guts, and... and spunk! Not to mention moxy! You got guts, spunk and moxy!
- Film.Ever After: Le Peu, as he tells Danielle more than once, likes a girl with spirit.
Literature
- The Assassins Of Tamurin: Lale gets a response of this nature when someone tries to rob her at knife point. He's so amused, he practically jokes he would like to rape her after all, as she originally thought. The results are not pretty... for him.
- A minor Running Gag in Discworld involves generically villainous thugs claiming to like "a girl with spirit", with footnotes informing us that these men will very shortly prove to be mistaken.
- Happens in The Good Guy by Dean Koontz when the hitman, Krait, kidnaps Tim's mother, who spites him, hides her fear and despair as best she can, and generally does everything in her power to foil her captor's plan. Krait is very amused by this.
- The Darkest Powers trilogy
- A werewolf says this to Chloe when she asks about his leg, which she stabbed with a switchblade a few days earlier.
Liam: Don't worry. I forgive you for the leg. I like a little spirit in my fillies. Makes them more fun to break.
- And reiterates, when she tries to block him from finding (and killing) her friend Derek, who is currently completely defenseless.
Liam: You do have spunk. We're gonna have fun, just as soon as I take care of your boyfriend.
- Mariel of Redwall: The title character is cornered by three searats and kicks one in the throat, killing him. The others don't use the exact usual words of this trope, but they come close. "A warrior maid, eh?"
- In the second Percy Jackson and the Olympians book, Polyphemus says this to Clarisse, before trying to force her to marry him.
- Vorkosigan Saga: Ges Vorryter mentioned that women with spirit (meaning Cordelia) should be more fun to break. Fortunately for her, he never got to test that.
- The goblin kings of the Hollow Kingdom Trilogy admire a kidnapped bride who utterly detests them and tries her best to escape, because it shows that she has the strength of spirit to carry a strong king for the next generation.
- In the first book, Kate manages to one-up them all by outwitting Marak repeatedly, agreeing to marry him on her own terms (a previously unheard-of occurrence), and then getting past the heavy enchantments to keep the King's Wife bound to the kingdom in the second half. Marak is of course delighted, and not just because she did the last to rescue him.
- Averted in Belisarius Series. Venandekatra the Vile was to cowardly to like spunk. He had no idea that Shakuntala would have killed him if he had been allowed to try to rape her.
Live-Action TV
Puppet Shows
- Possibly Lampshaded in Team America: World Police, where, after Gary Johnston stands up to a terrorist, the terrorist responds, "I like you. You have balls. I like balls."
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
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