Mama Bear / Live-Action TV

---

• 24:
  • Has a villainous example in Dina Araz. First she goes rogue against a terrorist organization, including her husband, when they order her son Behrooz to be killed. Then she turns around and tells Jack Bauer she'll be happy to let every nuclear plant in America melt down if he doesn't rescue Behrooz from a hostage situation. Don't. Touch. Behrooz.
  • Jack's wife, Teri, allows herself to be raped to spare her teenage daughter Kim, then we find out it's a ploy to steal his phone. Later, when the rapist goes to execute them, Teri shoots him, then fires a second shot to make the terrorists think she and her daughter were executed.
• Accused (2023): In "Jack's Story", Clara's mother didn't realize that her stepfather was raping her. When she does, her mom instantly turns on him and physically places herself in front of Clara, saying he can never come near them ever again in a protectively hostile manner.
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.:
  • Despite her "Ice Queen" persona earlier in the series, May becomes very protective of Skye, Fitz and Simmons as well as Coulson. Maybe the most remarkable example is when she beats up Ian Quinn for shooting Skye. And when the Mama Bear is a martial arts expert... run.
  • Subverted with Eva Belyakov, who steals a Terrigen crystal for her daughter and appears to be a classic example of the trope, but eventually we learn that she became Katya's tool just like everyone else.
• In Angel, Darla of all people has a Heroic Sacrifice to save her son (Connor) in her womb. She knows she can't give birth to him normally (due being undead) so she stakes herself before Connor suffocates inside her. Later, Darla appears to Connor as a spirit to help him fight back against a Brainwashed and Crazy Cordelia. It almost works but Connor is too far into the dark side to stop.
  • Fred's mother runs over a giant cockroach to protect her daughter.
• Moira Queen from Arrow plays with this. While she arranges to have her son kidnapped, it's because she's being forced to participate in Malcolm Merlyn's plot or else he'll hurt her family; she's not perfect, but she's still fiercely protective of her son, Oliver, and her daughter, Thea. In fact, she dies sacrificing herself to Deathstroke to save Thea, after Deathstroke tried to force Oliver to choose which one the former was going to kill.
• The Aunty Jack Show: If you are planning on going to Australia, don't insult nor harm Aunty Jack's friends. If you do, prepare for your brutal fate.
• Babylon 5: Delenn during the secession. Also to merchant shipping in the episode lines of communication. And to Dukhat. Watching her in a Mama Bear rage is as beautiful as watching a volcano.
• Battlestar Galactica (1978):
  • Cassiopeia (despite not being related) is very protective of Boxey and doesn't like it when the warriors let him stay up late playing cards and drinking (relax, it was fruit juice).
  • Boxy's own mother Serena became first a shuttle, then Viper pilot in order to help protect him (and by extension everyone else in the fleet).
• Battlestar Galactica (2003):
  • Athena in the revised show goes murderous on Natalie, a Six model Athena believes wants to kidnap her daughter Hera. To quote a reviewer:
    "Ordinary moms don't play when it comes to the safety of their children, let alone trained warrior alien robot moms."
  • Earlier in the series, Roslin decides they'll have to forcibly terminate Athena's unborn child. A truly epic Unstoppable Rage ensues when Athena finds out, to the point that she's headbutting bulletproof glass so hard it breaks, with no discernible effect on her beyond some bleeding. When the marines come to take her to sickbay for the procedure she tries to fight them off with a chair and actually knocks at least one of them down.
  • There's also Kara Thrace. She initially freaks out at the sight of the child because of her own Mommy Issues, but goes Mama Bear with a vengeance and stabs a Cylon dead to keep her safe. And then it turns out that the kid isn't really hers, after all — Leoben was just playing mind games with her using someone else's stolen toddler.
  • Laura Roslin could also be considered this for the entire human race, given her tendency for airlocking Cylons and attempting to abort human/Cylon fetuses to protect the fleet.
• Being Human: This BBC3 Program when Annie entered the warehouse full of old, and powerful vampires and screamed "GIVE ME BACK MY FUCKING BABY" and defeated the old ones and then to save the world actually BLEW UP the child in question. Now that is motherhood.
• The Brittas Empire: When Carol thinks her baby is in danger, she's perfectly capable of commandeering a digger and using it to smash up Brittas' car. With him inside it.
  Carole: You won't put this on my resume, will you Mr. Brittas?
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Buffy's mom Joyce, who goes after Spike with an axe when he threatens Buffy.
  • Buffy herself, crossed over with Big Sister Instinct, who goes nuts at the Knights of Byzantium, Well Intentioned Extremists who want to kill her younger sister in order to save the world.
    • Glory, for the same reason. Glory was strong enough to make their earlier fights Curb Stomp Battles, but in the final one, you get the feeling Buffy's getting a lot of catharsis slamming that magic hammer at her head over and over again.
  • It's a Summers thing. See Dawn's response to Spike in Season 7.
    Dawn, to Spike: I know I can't take you in a fight, even with a chip in your head. But if you hurt my sister, touch her at all? You're going to wake up on fire.
    Spike, later, to Buffy: When did your sister get unbelievably scary?
  • In Season 9, a demon goes after Willow and Marrack after Willow kills her child.
• Burn Notice:
  • Has Maddie Westen, who seems like any regular kind and gentle elderly woman. However, threaten her sons and she will make you regret it.
  • Take as proof the time that she made an enemy agent tell her where Michael was without doing more than offering him a cigarette and kindly and apologetically telling him You Have Outlived Your Usefulness and hopes they will make it a quick death this time, when the combined efforts of Sam and Fiona couldn't break him. And she's not even a trained spy, she's just a True Companion.
• Charmed:
  • In one episode, Piper learns that a young boy to whom she had grown attached was in danger, but a magically reinforced fence is blocking their path. She and her sisters try to get back in to no avail, but then Piper hears the boy screaming. She then uses her Molecular Combustion and blasts the gate open within five seconds.
    Phoebe: What was that?
    Paige: I think we just saw a mother lift a car off her child.
  • After Auntie Paige's failed attempt to locate newborn Wyatt's would-be kidnapper nearly got her killed, Mama Bear Piper burst into the demon Black Market, shouted "WHICH ONE OF YOU DIRTBAGS PUT A BOUNTY ON MY BABY!!" and proceeded to blow the place up.
    • Before this, when the guard demanded to know who she is, her answer before blowing him up defines the very essence of this trope.
      Piper I'm the mother!
    • What's even more awesome is that this causes the underworld a collective Oh, Crap! moment. Soon afterward, one of the upper-level demons, The Crone, writes a law that makes hurting Wyatt punishable by death, making as much known to Piper to prevent such retaliation again. Of course, The Crone had her own agenda with Wyatt.
  • All three of the sisters could be seen as Mama Bears, when Wyatt and Chris are threatened. And they're this even to each other.
  • Grams had shades of this as well. In "That 70's Episode" the sisters travel back and meet themselves as kids. When Grams walks in, she mistakes them for Warlocks attacking the children and immediately sends them flying out of the house with her telekinesis.
• Chicago P.D.: Detective Erin Lindsay shows some Mama Bear tendencies towards Nadia, one of her witnesses and CI, a seventeen-year-old drug addict. These include but are not limited to: threatening the guy holding her at gunpoint, promising to take care of her when she has withdrawal symptoms, letting her stay in her apartment, urging her to get clean, and taking her back to the clinic after Nadia participated in an undercover mission and promising to check on her every day.
• Cobra Kai: Amanda shows her case often. Both her defense of Robby at the beach club and her Tranquil Fury when Sam gets hurt show a woman who is fiercely protective of her kids. And in the same fashion of this trope, she winds up having the courage to confront and slap Kreese at the Cobra Kai dojo on behalf of Sam and Demetri after Demetri's arm gets broken. Earlier in the episode, she kicked Demetri and the rest of the Miyagi-Dos out (minus Sam) because she wanted her family to have nothing to do with karate or Miyagi-Do. Now, it seems like she really does care for the Miyagi-Do students as if they were her children. She even extends this to Tory, her daughter's arch-nemesis of all people, after learning the extent of her troubled home life.
• The Company You Keep: Birdie's very protective of her daughter Ollie, even insisting that she keep a tracker on her just to be safe despite Ollie's objection.
• Control Z: Martha and Nora. They genuinely care for and are very protective of their respective children, who would be Luis and Sofía, both of whom have been going through tough situations inside and outside of their school: Luis getting bullied on a daily basis and Sofía coping with her father's faked death through self-harm. Those circumstances affect their mothers emotionally as Martha keeps complaining to the principal about Luis's mistreatment and Nora meddles in Sofía's life and decisions.
• The Cosby Show: Denise Huxtable Kendall mistakenly believed her mother-in-law couldn't stand her. Believing herself unable to please the woman left Denise a crying wreck. Luckily for everyone involved, her mother Claire was wise enough to verify Mrs. Kendall's actual opinion of Denise before unleashing a Mama Bear fury (turns out hubby Martin's mother couldn't stand Martin's frequent rushes to judgement in matrimonial situations). For not listening to his mother, Martin was...less lucky.
  • Sondra inherited this from her mother, as we see in "Day of the Locusts," although it's a more comedic example than most. When Sondra gets a bad cold, both Clair and her mother-in-law Francine offer to help care for her and Elvin's twins for the day to give her a break—only for Sondra to learn that they took the kids to a beauty parlor and disrespected her wishes. Despite still being sick, Sondra absolutely loses her mind and delivers a furious diatribe to the older women, making it clear that they crossed a line: "You are my mother. I am THEIR mother. What I say goes. I tell people what they can and cannot do with my children!" She's even able to intimidate Clair—it's one of the only times in the whole series that Clair looks genuinely afraid and remorseful for her actions. Earlier, Cliff lampshades the trope when he warns Clair about it, saying that Sondra is looking for her and means business.
• Criminal Minds: JJ beautifully demonstrated in the Season 7 finale that you don't ever threaten Henry or Will. That UnSub had it coming.
  • For an UnSub example, we have Sheila Harrison, who became her little sister Lauryn-Anne's legal parent after their mother's death, from "What Happens in Mecklinburg". After Lauryn-Anne became a college student, she was brutally gang-raped at a frat party and left comatose, and since the rapists were football players, their coach covered the whole incident up (even falsifying official reports) because them being expelled would make him look bad. Sheila goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge by abducting not just the rapists, but everyone she holds responsible (such as a fellow college student who merely told Lauryn-Anne about the party) and subjecting them to Cold-Blooded Torture involving a fireplace poker and a gallon of hydrochloric acid.
• CSI:
  • Brought up in one episode, when the team is discussing a recent case where a man was killed on a plane by the passengers when he went berserk and tried to open the plane door.
  Nick: Do you think you could ever take a life in that situation?
  Catherine: *answering instantly* I could.
  Sara: *shocked* You didn't even stop to think about it!
  Catherine: When it comes to the life of my child, I go all the way.
  • Then there's the episode where Catherine's ex is murdered and Catherine has to fish Lindsay out of a car that's rapidly filling with water in a flood channel. When a suspect (her ex's main squeeze) starts referring to Lindsay as a "little brat" and reveals she left her in the car, Catherine storms in and nearly takes her head off.
  • When she came home to find a suspect in the driveway talking with her mother and daughter, she very calmly tells her mother to take her daughter inside, then she punches the guy in the face and pulls a gun on him. "You came to my house." Don't ever mess with Catherine's kid.
• CSI NY: Lindsay goes full-on Mama Bear when she wakes up in the middle of the night to find that Shane Casey, the serial killer who has been stalking Danny not only has him at gunpoint, but is also holding their daughter, Lucy. He threatens to kill the baby if Lindsay doesn't drop her gun, but Lindsay responds by shooting him dead.
  • In a later episode, she gets hit on the head by a vending cart while trying to protect Lucy from a panicked crowd and a man shooting. She'd rather get a hairline fracture of the skull than let her little girl get hurt.
• Dead Man's Gun: The eponymous character in "The Chef" is poisoned by the mother of a disgruntled employee he shot (although fortunately the man survived) largely out of spite after getting a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
• Degrassi: Mrs. Torres. Overlaps with My Beloved Smother - she's quite controlling of her football-jock older son and still coming to grips with her younger son's Transgender status, but if anyone else messes with them she will make their life miserable (and the school principal's as well, for good measure).
• Desperate Housewives:
  • Plays this straight twice:
  • In the second season, despite all of the emotional and mental distress her daughter Danielle put her through, Bree goes full-out Mama Bear when Danielle is revealed to be on the run with a murderer - one of the new neighbors and her boyfriend no less!
  • In a recent episode, Susan punishes Gaby's daughter, Juanita, for pushing and bullying her own son, MJ. Gaby, for all of her insecurities over Juanita's weight, gets fiercely protective of her daughter and starts calling MJ a little girl, to put it nicely. Cue the Mama Bear catfight.
• Devious Maids:
  • Screw around with Zoila's daughter and she'll threaten to kick your ass, even if you are her boss.
  • Frame Marisol's son for murder? She'll go undercover and solve the murder herself.
• Dinosaur Revolution: The documentary has a Mosasaur giving birth discovering her babies are being picked off by a group of sharks and proceeds to kill the entire group to protect the last one.
• Doctor Who:
  • Jackie Tyler WILL carry a HUGE gun and actually kill Daleks if it means saving her daughter Rose. It extends to honorary family members, too: in "World War Three/Aliens of London," a Slitheen attacks her and Mickey, and it's Jackie who defeats it by whipping up a vinegar-based concoction and hurling it at the alien.
  • Ambrose, from "The Hungry Earth"/"Cold Blood". Oh Lord, Ambrose. After her son is kidnapped by aliens, his otherwise average-person Mum who runs the local Meals on Wheels tortures a captured enemy to death to find him.
  • Amy Pond. She was going to take down a whole spaceship with crew, with her and her husband inside, just to save her daughter.
    • Later on, in "The Wedding of River Song":
      Madame Kovarian: [with her eye-patch giving her a direct link between herself and her bosses who are using said link to torture her] Amy... Help me.
      Amy: [rips off her eye-patch] You took my baby from me. And hurt her. And now she's all grown up and she's fine, but I'll never see my baby again.
      Madame Kovarian: ...But you'll still save me, though. Because he would, and you'd never do anything to disappoint your precious Doctor.
      Amy: ...The Doctor is very precious to me, you're right. But do you know what else he is, Madame Kovarian? Not here. [pushes her eyepach into her eye while she screams] River Song didn't get it all from you... Sweetie.
  • "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe": Madge Arwell definitely fits. She's a recently widowed woman from 1941 lost in a forest on an alien world at some point in the future with three soldiers pointing giant guns at her. Naturally, she starts crying and, seeing how upset she is, the soldiers drop their weapons so she can compose herself enough to answer their questions.
    Droxil: We're from Androzani Major. The year is 5345, and we mean you no harm. Where are you from?
    Madge: England, 1941. [pulls gun] And there's a war on. Crying's ever so useful, isn't it?
    Droxil: If you say so, but there's nothing you could say that would convince me you'd ever use that gun.
    Madge: Oh, really? Well, I'm looking for my children.
    Droxil: [suddenly looks quite convinced he might get shot]
  • Technically the 13th Doctor is a Mama Bear now while she might be a bubbly Timelady, any threat towards her companions, the innocent and Earth in general pisses her off the same as her previous Papa Wolf predecessors.
  • When Donna Noble returns to the show in "The Star Beast" we learn she now has a teenage daughter, Rose, who some of the kids at school are bullying her for being transgender. When two boys shout Rose's deadname at her in the street, Donna threatens to chase after them to make them shut up. Rose asks her not to, so Donna settles for telling her that "I would burn the world down for you darling". Later when The Meep refers to Rose as Donna's "weird child", Donna says "Don't you dare!"
• Dollhouse: Do not screw around with any of the Dolls. They're not her blood children, but Adelle DeWitt responds to the harming of a Doll with enough cold brutality to make anyone wince.
  • She's also become like this with Topher in the After the End finales "Epitaph One" and "Epitaph Two: Return." When Zone begins to mock him, she is not pleased.
• A particularly scary Mama Bear appears in Elementary. In the episode "The Diabolical Kind", a little girl is kidnapped from her wealthy parents' home and held hostage by a gang of criminals that used to work with Moriarty. An Enemy Mine situation begins, with Sherlock, Joan, and Moriarty working together to rescue the girl. As a safety precaution, Moriarty is forced to wear a set of powerful handcuffs that administer a shock if the person wearing them tries to escape. As it turns out, the girl is actually Moriarty's daughter, who she left with the wealthy family rather than raise the child herself. She was kidnapped to taunt and extort the master criminal. When Moriarty finds out about this, she cuts open her wrists with glass to disable the handcuffs, escapes her prison cell, and brutally kills the men who took her daughter, saving a special, drawn-out torture for the leader of the scheme. That's right: one of the most brilliant, resourceful, and dangerous criminal minds in the world has a child. If you value your life, do not mess with that child.
• Eureka resident Team Mom is Alison Blake, director of Global Dynamics and mother of originally autistic teenager Kevin Blake. The moment she gets a whiff of Kevin being in harm's way, all bets are off.
  • A massive rover—dubbed "Tiny"—was commissioned by NASA to explore Titan. Tiny accidentally downloaded emotional-attachment programming in one episode when EMO, the robot "baby" that Kevin was supposed to be Egg Sitting, wandered into her lab while she was receiving software updates. The two robots form a parent-child relationship not dissimilar to the one between Alison and Kevin. If Alison was a heavily-armored Spider Tank the size of a truck armed with Frickin' Laser Beams.
• Everybody Loves Raymond: Nagging, overbearing, and irritating though she may be, do not ever mess with Marie Barone's sons if you want to keep your dignity intact. Robert's first wife Joanne found that out the hard way.
• Farscape: Despite being a Team Mom rather than anybody's biological parent, Zhaan certainly has her moments. Case in point, her reaction to the being responsible for building Moya threatening the lives of both the ship and Pilot: suck him through a jet engine!
  • Don't forget about Aeryn in "The Peacekeeper Wars". Ahkna threatens her unborn child, Aeryn gives birth and proceeds to shoot Ahkna in the head.
  • Moya herself is one when it comes to her son Talyn. After his death she's determined that he will be laid to rest in the Leviathans' sacred burial space, so much so that she breaks her usual pacifism and asks the crew to kill an insane rogue Leviathan that's trying to stop them. The rogue Leviathan is this trope taken to Ax-Crazy levels, as she was driven mad by her offspring being enslaved and killed by the Peacekeepers. She objects to Talyn's burial as he's half Peacekeeper.
• FBI: Most Wanted: In "Defender", Denise Tyson's murderous rampage is driven by what Jess describes as "a maternal instinct on steroids".
• First Kill:
  • Both Margot and Talia are fiercely protective of their children, often nearly coming to blows themselves to protect Juliette and Cal respectively.
  • Talia also nearly comes to blows with Jack after Theo becomes a vampire. He wants to kill him, as he thinks Theo is no different from the monsters they hunt, but Talia cannot see him as anything other than her son.
  Talia: Over my dead body. There. You made me say it. You will kill my son over my dead body.
• In Flashpoint:
  • Deconstructed in "Severed Ties" where a woman kidnapped her biological daughters after they were Happily Adopted by two separate families. However, she makes things challenging for herself, the two girls and for Team One as she is determined to protect them from being taken away from her again and refused to allow paramedics bring one girl to the hospital after a severe allergic reaction.
  • Deconstructed again in "Custody" where a woman who lost custody of her children to her ex-husband. She kidnaps them and attempts to flee the country. When stopped by the police, she brings out a gun, threatening to shoot anyone who comes near her and her children.
  • Inverted in "Broken Peace". A teenage girl saw her mother being assaulted by her abusive father, leading her to actively try to shoot him with disastrous consequences.
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air had Aunt Viv, who was usually a calm, collected voice of reason when compared to the quick-tempered Uncle Phil. But if anyone ever dared to put her children or nephew in any sort of danger, all Hell would break loose.
  • In one episode, Will and Carlton are racially profiled for driving Uncle Phil's law partner's Mercedes in an affluent neighborhood; the two are put in jail and forced to confess on live TV to alert Phil and Viv to what had happened. Phil ended up having to hold Vivian back when she stormed into the prison, started openly insulting the officers, and, when dismissed with a "We're busy,", took off her earrings with a "Oh, honey, we about to get VERY busy up in here."
  • One episode saw Carlton befriending some tough black men in Compton using his business skills. The group was planning to go to MacArthur Park—an extremely dangerous area—when Vivian showed up to get her son and Will. Upon hearing their plans, she told all of the young men outright that none of them would be going to MacArthur Park. The biggest of the group—two heads taller that Aunt Viv and with biceps about the size of her head—stood up to protest, and she instantly shut him down: "Boy, do NOT test me." The huge guy proceeded to sheepishly sit back down.
  • When Will's Disappeared Dad Lou came to Bel-Air to reconnect with his son briefly, Vivian was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, unlike Phil. But when she learned that Lou was planning to abandon Will again to go on a business venture, she made it clear that she considered her nephew one of her own children and wasn't going to allow Lou to hurt him: "If you walk out of here, don't you ever come back."
• Fuller House:
  • Who would have thought that DJ Tanner-Fuller was one of these?! In the first season episode "The Legend of El Explosivo", however, her eldest son Jackson breaks his grounding to sneak in to a Lucha Kaboom event and ends up in the ring. When she sees Jackson in in trouble she hits the ring and all but single handed takes out "Los Pollos Locos" (The crazy chickens) a professionally trained wrestling tag team! For this she is given the ring name "Mamacita Del Amor" and offered a one year contract which she turns down.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Catelyn Stark vows to wipe out the Lannisters after she and Robb have saved Arya and Sansa, in retaliation for them killing her husband and taking her daughters hostage, stays by Bran's bedside for weeks while he's in a coma and abducts Tyrion on suspicion of trying to murder her son, which provokes a civil war. Later, she releases Jaime Lannister without her son's approval in exchange for her daughters. She also crosses the Despair Event Horizon when her eldest son is murdered right in front of her, though before this she took Walder Frey's terrified wife hostage in an attempt to save him. From the DVD commentary track discussing the moment she vowed to wipe out the Lannisters:
    David: This is an interesting scene, because up until this point, Catelyn has really been the voice of reason.
    Dan: Eh. After everything her family has been through, 'kill them all' kind of IS the voice of reason.
  • Cersei Lannister is a horrible person, but she loves her children and will reign Seven Hells down on anyone who might harm them.
    • When it looks like Stannis Baratheon will sack King's Landing, she even prepares to poison her youngest to spare him from getting murdered by the victorious enemy troops... albeit because such a massacre is exactly how her father came to renewed power and influence.
    • This is best exemplified when she's even willing to defy her father when he tries to ship her off to marry Loras Tyrell, which would leave her remaining son Tommen behind to be used as a political chess piece between his grandfather Tywin and his fiancee Margaery Tyrell, according to her. But in reality, her lust for power is also a big factor, if not bigger.
      Cersei: I will burn our House to the ground before I let that happen!
    • She also very much fears for her daughter Myrcella's safety when she's sent off to Dorne in Season 2 to be bequeathed to a hostile House, but in Season 5 the Martells ship her a trinket of Myrcella's corresponding to one of Cersei's, very much suggesting that her daughter's life is in danger^note after a Lannister-employed brute horrifically kills a beloved Prince of Dorne, and her rage is something to behold. She declares she will have Dorne burnt down if they dare hurt her.
    • Her determination to have Tyrion executed after the poisoning of Joffrey also falls under this trope. As opposed to Tywin, who is just glad to have The Millstone out of the way and is willing to use a convenient scapegoat, Cersei genuinely believes that the accused person is guilty and seeks to avenge her child.
    • Ultimately subverted, however, in the tail-end of Season 6 and the rest of Season 7. After watching his wife, whom he has genuinely come to love, get killed as a result of Cersei's machinations, Tommen commits suicide. Cersei has driven her own son to suicide because she couldn't bear to be second to anyone, and when Jaime calls her out on it all she replies is that Tommen 'betrayed her'. The truth of Cersei is that she only ever loved her children as extensions of herself.
  • Olenna Tyrell poisons King Joffery to protect her granddaughter Margaery, and to a lesser extent, her grandson Loras, as it was only a matter of time before he made homosexuality punishable by death.
    Olenna: You didn't really think I'd let you marry that beast, did you?
  • The wildling, Osha, becomes one towards Bran and Rickon Stark after the Starks choose to spare her life, to the point that she seduces Theon when he comes to Winterfell as a foe and potential menace to the children to be sure to have a diversion, kills the guard, and then takes the children away and promises to kill fellow wildlings if need be to protect them. Likewise, if it weren't from Bran accepting the Reeds as traveling companions, it seems that Osha wouldn't hesitate to kill them in an instant, particularly Meera.
  • Daenerys Stormborn is this not only to her "children" but also her followers:
    • After being tricked by Mirri Maz Duur into sacrificing her unborn child to turn Drogo into an Empty Shell, she has Mirri burned alive in her husband's funeral pyre, which in turn leads to the birth of her three dragons. She becomes very protective of her dragons, and they her. If you touch her dragons, you'll be reminded that her father was Aerys Targaryen. She even tells Jorah that they're the only children she will ever have. In the books, Dany hasn't had her period since she miscarried Rhaego, and doesn't believe she'll ever be able to have children again.
    • She also doesn't take people mistreating her followers well, particularly Missandei.
    • In Season 7, it's neither Jon Snow's warning, nor Melisandre's, nor actually meeting the Night King himself that changes her mind about setting aside her quest to retake the Iron Throne for the time being. It's the sight of the Night King murdering her dragon Viserion that finally convinces her to do it.
    • This reaches its breaking point in the penultimate episode, where Cersei has Euron Greyjoy kill one of Daenerys' two remaining dragons, Rhaegal, and has Missandei executed in front of Daenerys. The result is the dragon queen burning King's Landing to the ground, not only killing Cersei but effectively wiping out the Lannisters, the Ironborn, and their supporters from the map.
  • Though it doesn't do her much good, Walda Bolton is one too - when she and her baby are about to be devoured, her first instinct is to try and shield him with her body.
  • Lyanna Stark's last actions are to ensure that her brother Ned would protect her newborn son Jon Snow, even as she is dying from bleeding out after giving birth.
    Lyanna: If Robert finds out, he'll kill him. You know he will. You have to protect him. Promise me, Ned. Promise me.
  • While Daenerys is this for the dragons, they also invert it. They will snap at anyone who so much as insults their "mother".

  • In the case of the Stark children, we have a Mama Wolf involved with the youngest daughter of the family. Arya’s beloved pet direwolf, Nymeria, is really protective of her young master. The very instant Joffrey goes Axe-Crazy on Arya, Nymeria leaps out of nowhere and gives him a harsh, but well deserving bite on his sword arm. Arya herself struggles a bit from pulling Nymeria off from Joffrey. Next we see Joffrey, he has his heavily bandaged arm in a sling. Unfortunately, this enrages his mother, Cersei, into demanding the direwolf’s pelt, so Arya has to reluctantly force Nymeria to go live in the wild.
• General Hospital: Lawyer Alexis Davis has killed more than once for one of her girls and she's not above bribery, faking a paternity test or making deals with the mob if it will help one of her children. NEVER mess with Alexis's daughters Sam, Kristina and Molly. She WILL drive over you with her car, shove you out a window or send her hitman lover to mess you up if you forget these wise words of advice.
• Gilmore Girls:
  • Family matriarch Emily Gilmore will never be accused of being the warm motherly type, but if you humiliate her daughter Lorelai or granddaughter Rory, a bitch will get blown the fuck up.
  • Here is a clip of the event in question, aptly titled Do NOT FUCK with Emily Gilmore.
  • And then there's how much of a Mama Bear Lorelai is. Anytime Rory could have possibly been hurt, let alone the time that she actually was hurt, Lorelai went from Cool Mom to panicky, overprotective "hurt my daughter and your death will be slow and painful" Mama Bear.
• Good Luck Charlie: Played for Laughs. Amy met with one of Teddy's teachers to try to talk him into changing her grade on a test (he had marked an answer wrong on a minor technicality). When he brushed her off, Amy calmly knocked everything off of his desk. "Mama Bear just cleared your schedule." The next day, the principal called Teddy in to discuss the security camera footage of Amy chasing the teacher through the halls with a janitor's broom.
• Hangin' with Mr. Cooper: After her daughter attempts to hide the fact that she's being bullied, the genteel Southern woman Geneva, who to that point had never displayed any show of anger above a stern look, bursts through the doors of the school and screams "WHOOOOO'S BEEN MESSIN' WITH MY BABEEEEEEH???" She then threatens to "RAAAAAAAIIIIN on [the bully] like a GEORGIA THUNDERSTORM!!!!!"
• Heroes:
  • Has straight and Subverted Trope examples:
  • Played straight: Nikki/Jessica were both devoted to little Micah and willing to do much to protect him. Jessica's methods were a bit more violent. Also, its because of her going to great lengths to protect and help her family that acted as the first clue in the Season 1 Finale that The "Jessica" that "killed" Micah before fighting Nikki was not actually Jessica, and that "Micah" was actually an illusion.
  • Inverted Trope: Sylar's mother had built him up as the perfect child, but she freaked out and denounced him when she found out what he could do.
  • Angela Petrelli also proved to be quite the Mama Bear for Nathan Petrelli. She wanted him to succeed in being the mayor of New York City and ultimately the Presidency (although she did not anticipate that Sylar would actually take his place), and she even killed her husband when it became too apparent that he was perfectly willing to murder her son before he digs deep enough to find out some of his evil deeds, and she even goes as far to brainwash Sylar into thinking he's Nathan via Fake Memories (and essentially forcing Matt Parkman into doing so) when the real Nathan died.
• House of the Dragon:
  • Rhaenyra Targaryen, budding Warrior Queen and mother to five boys (and one stillborn girl) to whom she is absolutely devoted. She will literally go to war to keep them safe and ensure their legacies and the death of her second son Lucerys is the spark that sets it off.
  • Alicent is fed up with once Viserys refuses to punish either Rhaenyra’s son Lucerys when he cuts the eye of their third child, Aemond or Rhaenyra for the umpteenth time, to the point that, blinded by anger, she personally decides to personally gauge out Lucerys’ eye, but Rhaenyra comes between them and grabs onto Alicent’s knife hard. The whole scene itself is a battle of the superior Mama Bear. Once she crowns her eldest son, Argon as the next king, Rhaenys appears about to burn them all with dragonfire, but Alicent fearlessly steps in front of Aegon and tries to shield him. Her father, Otto points out that she must embrace this trait in episode 5, pointing out that, with the realm’s aversion for a female ruler, Rhaenyra will likely have to kill her children to secure the throne, saying that she can either take a stand or trust in her friend's mercy. Alicent declares war against Rhaenyra by wearing a green dress at her wedding feast and puts her full support on her son's claim.
• iCarly: Marissa Benson, Freddie's Helicopter Mom, is usually a nuisance to everyone, especially Freddie himself. But when someone puts him in real danger, they're in real trouble if she finds out.
  • In iFence Mrs. Benson moves in for her Roaring Rampage of Revenge, beating a bunch of Freddie's bullies and other fencing students while Dual Wielding a pair of sabers.
  • In iStill Psycho, she one-ups herself when she realizes that Freddie and the iCarly gang are in danger at the house of the Ax-Crazy psycho fan Nora. She and T-Bo proceed to drive a motorcycle straight through the front door to rescue them. And when Nora and her mother grab fire pokers to attack, Mrs. Benson pulls two broadswords off the wall, gives a Pre Ass Kicking One Liner, and fights them both at once. This time, she was up against opponents who were trying to kill her, and she still whipped them so thoroughly that even Sam was impressed.
• I Dream of Jeannie: Jeannie certainly had her Mama Bear moment in the climax of the 1991 made-for-TV movie I Still Dream of Jeannie. She comes to her son Tony Jr.'s rescue by blasting open a set of heavy-duty fire-rated steel doors. Sweet, giggling, kind, seemingly ditzy Jeannie then gives way to an enraged monster. Truly her Momentof Awesome.
  Jeannie: DO NOT TOUCH HIM!
• In From the Cold: Jenny, an Action Mom to begin with, flips out when her daughter Becca is endangered and rushes off for her, not even letting getting shot stop this.
• Intergalactic: Rebecca, Ash's mother, is absolutely determined she'll retrieve her safely, even if she's got to kill people.
• I Shouldn't Be Alive: This show once featured a family that got lost in the desert. The mother's boyfriend went off for help and later the mother and her two daughters tried to follow him. While they were walking, human traffickers tried to capture the girls. The mother's response: "If you hurt my children, I will shoot you." The traffickers knew better than to mess with an angry mom.
• Jekyll: The female protagonist is asked when she first knew she could kill someone. She replies that it was after her children were born. The answer is the key to the nature of Mr Hyde in that he is a ruthless psychopath created not by the dark side of humanity, but by pure love.
• Jurassic Fight Club:
  • Had one episode in which a Nanotyrannus tries to take out a pair of young Tyrannosaurs. He succeeds in killing one, but the mother arrives and kills him, ripping apart the corpse to keep any other predators away.
  • Also notable was the episode in which a male Majungotholus attempted to kill a baby to entice the mother to mate. While the male succeeds, the female breaks his neck, preventing him from moving as she eats him alive.
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit deconstructs this trope with Detective Amanda Rollins and her sister Kim. Amanda's established as being extremely protective of her little sister, to whom she'd acted as a mother figure since their actual mother is a dysfunctional mess. Eventually, Kim uses this as part of a Batman Gambit in which she sets Amanda up to kill her abusive boyfriend in "defense" of Kim, so that she (Kim) can collect insurance money on the guy. She then frames Amanda for the entire scheme, leading to Amanda getting investigated by Internal Affairs, nearly losing her badge and facing prison time.
  • Olivia becomes a straight example once she is given (temporary) guardianship of Noah in the Season 15 finale. In the Season 16 premiere, SVU struggles to find Noah's mother's killer, which involves an elaborate prostitution/human trafficking ring. On numerous occasions, the bad guys warn her to stay away and name-drop Noah as a threat. She...doesn't respond well to that. Then, three seasons later, after Olivia has gotten permanent custody of Noah, Noah's biological grandmother tries to kidnap him. Olivia does not take it lying down.
  • Also played straight with Rollins in later seasons after she becomes a mother to two girls. Like Olivia, she gets extremely pissed off whenever a suspect so much as hints at threatening her babies.
  • In a non-main character example, "Quarry" has a pedophile murdered by his ex-wife after she learned that he had molested their son.
  • In "Lost Traveller", a mother tries to burn the prime suspect alive to revenge her son's kidnapping and eventual murder. As it turns out, the man didn't even do it
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Bronwyn refuses to leave Theo when a rogue orc breaks into their house, even when he insists she should run for help, and despite ostensibly being a non-combatant, her maternal outrage kicks in and the orc is beheaded.
• Lost: Claire, especially in Season 6 when she learns that Kate was raising Aaron. And Kate herself qualifies as well in regards to Aaron.
• Mad Men: When her neighbor threatens to kill Sally Draper's dog, her mother Betty shoots his beloved pigeons with an air rifle.
• Major Crimes: Captain Sharon Raydor for her Foster Kid Rusty Beck. Don't fuck with him, or she will have your hide.
• Malcolm in the Middle:
  • When Reese is the victim of a cruel prank by the popular girls in one episode, Lois strikes back (which is in fact the title of the episode) with overly elaborate and exotic forms of revenge (such as filling up one girl's motorcycle helmet with bubblegum and putting a fraudulent charge for an expensive hotel room for a sexual getaway on another girl's credit card).
  • In another episode, a corrupt teacher is revealed to actually have it out for Reese when Malcolm accidentally lets slip that he did one of Reese's tests for him and the teacher still gave it an "F". Lois' anger at the boys is completely dwarfed by her anger at the teacher. She proves completely willing to let Malcolm take the fall for cheating because she knows he's smart enough to succeed in life anyway; Reese needs all the help he can get.
• The Mandalorian:
  • Chapter 4 “Sanctuary” has Omera who’s a single mother to her daughter Winta, simple farmer she may be it’s a cutthroat universe and she’ll fight an army to protect her daughter.
  • While he did Force-Choke her once, Cara Dune develops Mama Bear tendencies towards The Child Grogu protecting him from harm alongside Papa Wolf Mando. In the Season 1 finale she carries the baby in one hand and a BFG in the other.
  • The Frog Lady in Chapter 10: “The Passenger” has her race on the verge of extinction and will do anything to safeguard her eggs. When Mando’s Razorcrest crashes on a ice planet on route to the planet where her husband is at, Mando throws in the towel and is prepared to wait for rescue, but the Frog Lady demands (using a droid’s voicebox to speak) he get off his ass and fix the ship as her eggs will die in the cold weather. Later in the episode she even saves Grogu from the Ice Spiders, unaware Grogu ate several of her eggs.
  • Several monsters are like this, the Mudhorn from Chapter 2 and the Knobby white Ice Spider from Chapter 10 attack Mando and his allies after entering their nests and disturbing their eggs.
• Mayfair Witches: Rowan petrifies Cortland after he tries to take her baby.
• Merlin:
  • Morgana's strong attachment towards Mordred, a young Druid boy she nurses to health, causes her to become very protective of him and a willingness to do anything for him in order to keep him from harm's way.
• Missing (2012): This ABC show has Becca Winstone, who retired from the CIA after her husband was killed. When her son is kidnapped, she goes nuts. " I am not CIA, I am a mother looking for her son!"
• My Name Is Earl: If you value your teeth, don't even think about saying an unkind word about Joy Turner's kids. She's got one mean left hook. Even happy pills can't turn off her instinct to stick up for her kids.
• The Nanny: Fran Fine may come off as nasal, big-haired, and desperate, but when you mess with the Sheffield children, she will let loose her inner Jewish Mother when she strikes back. It's apparent as early as "Here Comes the Brood," when C.C. cruelly tells little Gracie that Fran only pretends to like the children because she's paid to do it. When Fran finds out, she says, without dropping the smile from her face: "You're a lovely woman, and I wish you well—but if you ever hurt one of my kids again, they'll be wiping your blue blood from the walls."
  • Fran inherited this tendency from her mother Sylvia, who, despite being meddlesome, never hesitates to protect her beloved Franny from danger. It's best seen when Fran is finally getting married to Mr. Sheffield: when the priest reaches the part of the ceremony asking people to Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace, Sylvia stands up and gives the congregation a Death Glare to end all Death Glares.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: Played for Laughs in The Beatniks" when Joel takes advantage of the fact that both Crow and Servo have inanimate arms and hands to constantly defeat them at Rock Paper Scissors, Gypsy retaliates by ramming the CRAP out of him and comforts Crow and Servo by saying "My babies!".
• NCIS:
  • In one episode, a mother lays a royal smackdown on her "sister" (actually one of the kidnappers) the minute she find out that her daughter is safe. Bonus points in that the trope is actually Lampshaded by Ducky in the same episode.
    "She's NOT my sister! She's ONE OF THEM! She told me if I didn't lie to you they'd KILL MY BABY!"
  • In "Caged", an inmate at a women's prison murdered one of the prison guards because he raped her oldest daughter. A serial killer who already had a life sentence takes the blame, and the team remarks on how none of them believe she really did it, and none of them are going to lose any sleep over it.
  • In "Outlaws and In-laws" Mike Franks actually names this trope directly, when telling his dead son's mother-in-law about his daughter-in-law, her daughter, shoots down two mercenaries trying to kidnap her daughter with a .22 caliber hunting rifle. Franks remarks that out of six shots, she hit with five.
  • Agent Lee became The Mole to protect her little sister, whom she has raised as her own since their parents' deaths. The moment she finds out the kid in question is safe, she lets Gibbs SHOOT her to take the bad guy down!
• NCIS: Los Angeles:
  • In "Black Budget", when her house is attacked by arms dealers posing as an elite black-ops unit, the mother kills one of the attackers by chopping a meat cleaver into the skull of one of the attackers who's armed with a frickin' machine gun.
• NUMB3RS:
  • A dark example in "Killer Chat" Elaine Tillman found out that her husband molested their daughter (she knew he was a pedophile, but he had promised her he wouldn't do anything to their children), so she murdered him in revenge. Then she started luring other child molesters to vacant houses under the disguise of a teenaged girl online, torturing them to get their recorded confessions, and then murdering them so no other innocent kid would go through what her daughter went through ever again.
• Odd Squad: Throughout Season 1, Olive is shown to be maternal towards Otto at times, and the two have a sibling-like bond with each other. Because of it, she is protective of him and will do everything in her power to save him from danger — for example, in "Game Time", while not skilled in the realm of video games, she steps up to the plate and teaches herself how to play Robo-Blast-Bots in order to save him from dying in the game (since if he dies there, he dies in the real world).
• Once Upon a Time:
  • Mary Margaret kicks Jefferson (the Mad Hatter) out of a window as a result of her subconscious Snow White persona coming out because Jefferson was about to shoot her daughter Emma.
  • Once she regains her memories as Snow White at the end of Season 1, she fully embraces this trope with Emma, following her through a portal to the curse ravaged FTL, saving her from ogres and putting herself between Emma and any threat.
    • The ogre-incident deserves special mention. With her daughter Emma about to be attacked by a twenty-foot-tall ogre, Snow put an arrow straight through the creature's eye, killing it with a single shot. You do not want to mess with this woman's family.
  • She was less than pleased when Mulan started hacking down the beanstalk that Emma was up, and who knows what she would've done if Emma hadn't come down just then to admit that she had in fact told Mulan to do just that.
  • King George/Spencer attempts to shoot at a wolfed-out Ruby. Granny shoots the gun out of his hands with her crossbow and threatens that the next one "goes between [his] eyes."
  • Emma has this tendency towards Henry. When he fell under the sleeping curse after eating a poisoned apple turn over, Emma threw Regina around the supply room and beat her up
  • Regina could be an evil example.
    • Especially in Season 3. If you try to kidnap Henry, she will team up with her worst enemies and track you down in the jungles of Neverland. In Save Henry, she reveals that she feels no regret for any of the horrible things she did "because it got me my son", after which she proceeds to rip Henry's heart out of Peter Pan's chest and return it to him, saving Henry's life. Even Evil Has Loved Ones indeed.
  • Ashley/Cinderella is a Mama Bear as well.
• One Tree Hill: Brooke Davis is fiercely protective of her adoptive daughter Samantha. When Sam gets kidnapped by Xavier, Brooke gets over her fears, rescues Sam, and throughly kicks his ass, then she holds a gun to his head and is the verge of pulling the trigger until Sam talks her out of it. Brooke then says she won't waste anymore time with garbage like him and then cold cocks him with the gun before walking off.
• The Originals: Hayley Marshall is willing to go up against any threat, up to and including the child's incredibly dangerous father, if it means protecting her daughter, Hope.
  • Rebekah and Freya both demonstrate this as well, to the point where Freya tells Klaus that she loves Hope the way she loved her own child, who she lost to a forced miscarriage.
  Hayley: Welcome to a twenty-first century custody battle. Moms win them now.
• Orphan Black:
  • Both Sarah and Alison show shades of this towards their own kids, and all the clones are very protective of Kira - as is Mrs. S. Even Helena has a mild case.
  • Heck even Cosima is this towards Kira and she's never even met her.
• The Outer Limits (1995): Shal in the episode "Rite Of Passage" Shal is a perfectly ordinary human who has convinced her baby's father to help her rebel against their alien caretakers after their baby is confiscated. The aliens did that because they felt that they were better equipped to care for it. After realizing that it is no excuse for separating a mother from her child, they apologize and return the baby.
• The Outpost: Despite being rather poor as a mother to Janzo, when The Mistress sees him threatened by a soldier of the Prime Order, she throws herself on the man, stabbing him with her knife. She's stabbed and killed herself from doing so.
• Power Rangers in Space: There's one episode, in which a monster is forced to be evil, but is good-hearted. After fighting with a lone Cassie, she sees the gentleness inside of him, and tells him that it's okay to be good. However, Astronema attacks the monster, severely damaging it. The look of sheer hatred on Cassie's face toward Astronema is the source of nightmares.
• Power Rangers Dino Fury: In "Void Trap", Dr. Akana ends up learning that her son, Ollie, is a Power Ranger along with his friends when his rescue attempt from Void Knight ends up DePowering them. She proceeds to vow to Void Knight that if he hurt her son, she would destroy him and everything he loved.
• Pretty Little Liars:
  • Of all people, Pam Fields from this TV series (adapted from the book series). Sure, she's trying to come to grips with her daughter's being a lesbian, but when Paige's father says that Emily became the captain of the swim team because she's a lesbian, she lets him have it. Arguably her Moment of Awesome. (Especially considering her earlier behavior towards her daughter's sexuality.)
  • It cannot be stressed enough what a terrible idea it is to threaten Ashley Marin's daughter, Hanna. Detective Darren Wilden learns this the hard way.
• Psych: In the first movie, Chief Karen Vick leaps into action when her daughter is kidnapped by the Big Bad.
• Quantum Leap: Played with since the mom in question was actually Sam Beckett in the mom's body.
• Sonia from Rebelde Way is generally friendly and easy-going (if your name isn't Franco Colucci), but harm Marizza in any way and she'll have no mercy for you.
• Revolution:
  • Rachel Matheson. Episode 2 showed Rachel shooting the Wiry Stranger when he put her daughter Charlie's life in danger and tried taking away the Matheson's food. Episode 7 had Rachel making a deal with Randall Flynn to make sure Danny Matheson survived. In episode 9, when Monroe threatened to have Rachel and Danny killed off and replace her with Dr. Bradley Jaffe, she responded by stabbing Jaffe to death and said that Monroe still needs her. When Danny dies in episode 11, she embarks on a journey to the Tower with Aaron. Episode 17 turns this into a Deconstructed Trope, when she reveals to Aaron that she only wants the power turned back on so that Monroe will get killed off by other people and avenge the death of her son in a sense, and that this matters more to her than the Blackmore's dying son. Episode 19 has her reluctantly team up with Monroe to save her daughter's life.
  • Charlie is starting to show signs of this, too. Episode 10 has her step forward and offer herself to be shot by Sergeant Will Strausser instead of Danny. She is quite protective of her brother that way.
• The Rookie (2018): La Fiera (The Fierce) a female Guatemalan cartel boss, earned her nickname due to having shot dead a bunch of gangsters in Guatemala during a shootout whose violence was endangering her son. She's insistent that the story is entirely true when Angela questions it, and is equally protective of him when assassins come gunning for her. Despite hating La Fiera's crimes, Angela can't help admiring this. La Fiera, spotting that Angela's pregnant, tells her to be the same way.
• The Sarah Jane Adventures: Sarah Jane Smith. Do not threaten Luke, or you'll find out just how deadly a Technical Pacifist can be.
• Sense8:
  • Capheus tells Sun about an incident from his childhood where his late father's enemies showed up at the house threatening to kill him and his heavily pregnant mother. Shiro pushed Capheus behind her and, armed only with a kitchen knife, told the men that if they killed her she'd take at least one of them with her. The men immediately backed down and left them alone rather than risk themselves.
  • Riley's backstory involved her husband crashing their car while trying to rush her to the hospital after she went into labor. After giving birth in the overturned car she punched through the window to try and get herself and the baby to safety. Unfortunately the baby died of exposure to the Icelandic winter.
• Smallville:
  • Clark Kent might be Superman, but if you try to hurt him, his adopted mother Martha Kent will retaliate. She even once held Tess Mercer at gunpoint - and got away with it unscathed!
  • Chloe is this to her "kids" at the Isis Foundation for the meteor infected.
• Speechless: Maya is this to J.J. She is very protective of him and will lash out against anyone who acts against him, be it through outright ableism or simply ignorance.
• Stargate Atlantis: Teyla. When Big Bad Michael threatens to kidnap her infant son for use in his experiments, Teyla responds by shoving him off the top a very, very tall tower.
• Stargate SG-1:
  • Janet Frasier gets this way when her adopted daughter Cassandra is undergoing a mutation courtesy of Nirrti, going so far as to threaten the Goa'uld at gunpoint to fix Cassandra. Nirrti still is unwilling to help at first, even with the gun to her head. Then Hammond asks her to reconsider in light of the fact that Janet Frasier is Cassandra's (adoptive) mother and she's suddenly much more cooperative. The Goa'uld might not have much of a maternal instinct for each other, but they damn sure can recognize it when a Mama Bear is pointed at them.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation:
  • In the episode "The Dauphin", the shapeshifting guardian of a young girl destined to rule a planet (who is later revealed to be of the same species) takes this to absolutely insane levels of paranoia, up to and including ordering Dr. Pulaski to kill a patient with a mildly infectious disease because it just might possibly effect her surrogate daughter, who was not even allowed outside her quarters anyway.
  • Dr. Beverly Crusher can be a Mama Bear too. She came after Lore with a phaser when he threatened her son. He may be a Creator's Pet, but his mama loves him.
• Star Trek: The Original Series: The Horta in the episode The Devil in the Dark is a classic example of a Mama Bear. The mining colony at first believes that she is attacking them out of pure malice, not knowing that the odd silicon spheres that they've been finding and disposing of (thinking them to be worthless) are her eggs, and her attacks are an attempt to defend them. Fortunately, once Kirk and Spock figure out that she is really a peaceful and reasonable creature they can communicate with, they find she's open to a compromise to settle the conflict.
• Star Trek: Voyager: Do not mess with Janeway's crew. Especially not when Janeway has the newest, most powerful technology of the Federation at her disposal and absolutely no issues with using it.
  • Later on, a similar prohibition applies regarding the ex-Borg kids from "Collective" and Seven of Nine. Messing with them isn't just likely to end badly for you, it's virtually guaranteed.
• Strange Empire: If you endanger Kat's daughters, expect her to show up at the last moment and force you to reconsider your decisions at gunpoint.
• Joyce Byers from Stranger Things, big time. Sure, due to being played by Winona Ryder she looks like a stiff breeze should knock her over and most people in Hawkins think she is a frail and hysterical mother, but when her youngest son Will goes missing, she goes above and beyond to find him. Not even an Eldritch Abomination can stop Joyce from protecting her son as in the climax of season 2, she literally burns the Mind Flayer out of Will, showing she is willing to hurt her beloved son so long as it saves him, which puts her above most Mama Bears. Joyce is so good at this trope, she makes every other mother in Hawkins look abysmal in terms of parenting by comparison. Eleven, who has a bad case of Parental Abandonment issues, certainly sees Joyce in this light, as Joyce can literally soothe Eleven while she's in the Upside Down mindscape, something that is very difficult for Eleven herself do.
  • Special mention goes to Eleven's biological mother Terry Ives, who, after her daughter got kidnapped by the villains at Hawkins National Laboratory, decided to take her baby back by force. She nearly succeeds too, killing a security guard and getting to the room where Eleven is being held but then she's captured and lobotomized. However, her love for her daughter is so strong, Eleven is able to use her powers to communicate with her mother despite years of Terry being rendered catatonic.
• Carey Martin from The Suite Life of Zack & Cody is freakishly protective of her sons Zack and Cody, and if you ever miss with them, BAD IDEA! She even references the Trope Namer while threatening Esteban on where they went, terrifying him so much that he sheepishly begs, "Don't eat me!"
• Supergirl (2015): Lillian Luthor, Lena's mother, is a deconstruction. Not only did she drive herself insane trying to justify her son Lex's many crimes, but she is violently racist in an attempt to "protect" her daughter Lena, even at the expense of the world. Lena is hardly impressed.
  Lillian: Do you know of any other mother who would kill for her daughter?
  Lena: No, I don't. That's probably a good thing for society.
• Supernatural:
  • Mary Winchester's ghost. That poltergeist in "Home" never stood a chance when it tried to kill her boys. Also a Moment of Awesome.
    • Not to mention when she is resurrected in Season 12.
  Mary: Get away from my boys.
  • In Season 6, we have Eve, the Mother of All Monsters, who came to Earth because her 'children' were being threatened and who is indirectly responsible for most of the monsters the show features.
  • In Season 8, we have Kevin Tran's mother Linda.
• Teen Wolf:
  • Ms. McCall does not react kindly to Mr. Argent's implication that her son is dragging down his daughter. In Season 3, the alpha twins find themselves on the business end of a defibrillator when they threaten her son.
  • A darker example would be Mrs. Argent, who seriously threatens Scott with violence and in one incident TRIES TO MURDER HIM after witnessing Scott making out with her daughter.
• Temps de chien: When Antoine and Stéphane brings a dog named Maggie to a hospital (even though it's against the law) in order to use an echograph on her, they meet a pregnant woman, who agrees to help them after Stéphane lies by claiming the dog is also pregnant. When one of the doctors working at the hospital sees them and is about to call a security agent, the pregnant woman threatens to smash the doctor's head against the doorframe. The doctor in question agrees to give them five minutes instead of calling an agent.
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: As mentioned above, the series expounds on the fierceness Sarah displayed in the movies. Her whole life is this trope, fighting to keep her son safe from the machines sent to Terminate him. Unstoppable, unrelenting, remorseless killing machines that have laid waste to entire armies of Resistance fighters and police officers, always single-handedly - and she has buried every one. In fact, she's destroyed more Terminators than any other human. No wonder her son said she was the greatest fighter he'd ever known.
• Terra Nova: Elisabeth Shannon. Up until the season finale, she's simply an amazing mother, a brilliant scientist and an incredibly-gifted doctor. But when her son and husband are captured and tortured, she takes merely thirty seconds to out-badass almost every other character to appear in the first season. And how.
• Torchwood: Miracle Day: Gwen Cooper. Threaten her family and she will bring the PAIN.
• Ultraman Mebius: In one episode of this series, a Lunch Lady whom is revealed to be the mother of seven children gets possessed by a slug alien known as "Alien Serpent". Not only does she manage to overthrow his mind control just by remembering her family, she also manages to take out his entire team with ease with her possessing Alien Serpent's own body the whole time!
• The Umbrella Academy:
  • Robot Maid Grace is a non-violent version, she adores her adoptive children who all call her “Mom” and will quickly provide first aid when any of them are hurt as seen with Luther and later Allison. The feeling is mutual as Diego in particular tries desperately to save her as the mansion collapses.
  • Sissy from Season 2 to her autistic son Harland, she even pulls her a shotgun on her despicable husband Carl when he tries to take Harlan away from her. Vanya becomes this to Harlan as well, using her powers to resuscitate him after he drowns although this has disastrous consequences.
• The Walking Dead (2010):
  • Michonne is a One-Woman Army who'll slash through a herd of walkers or humans to protect her surrogate children. She spends days tracking down Carl, places herself between him and a band of psychopathic marauders, actively slaughters the remaining Termites when they threaten Judith, and then impales Ron on her katana when he tries to shoot Carl and Rick.
  • Carol. To the absolute extreme. She'll kill anyone walker or human in the most ruthless and pragmatic ways if they pose any threat to the group. Carol's Mama Bear instinct is so terrifying she eventually exiles herself to stop the lengths she'll go.
    Carol: How do you think I do those things?
    Tobin: You're a mom. It's not the cookies or the smiles. It's the hard stuff. The scary stuff. It's how you do it. It's a strength.
• WandaVision has Wanda Maximoff herself who, like in the comics, treasures her twin sons Billy and Tommy and will deliver a Chaos Magic Reality Warper-filled world of hurt to any foe suicidal enough to harm them. Wicked Witch Agatha learned this lesson the hard way, as she held Billy and Tommy hostage with bounds wrapped around their throats. In response, Wanda breaks them free, orders her sons to get inside, and smashes Agatha into a house with a telekinetically thrown car. Made even more epic when Papa Wolf Vision joins the fray. Played with cruelly though, as Wanda is faced with a Sadistic Choice when she pulls down the Hex to free the people she’s trapped, and sees Vision and her sons start disintegrating due the Hex keeping them alive. Distraught, Wanda initially restores the Hex, unable to face losing her family, but ultimately lets them go in the end, getting to say goodbye. The series post-credits scene strongly implies that Wanda is searching for a way to bring the twins back.
  • Monica Rambeau also counts, and she was technically Wanda's midwife. When Tyler Hayward turns a gun on Tommy and Billy in the final episode, she throws herself in front of them without a second thought. Her new powers save her, but she had no way of knowing this at the time. She was fully prepared to die for those kids.
• Warehouse 13: Helena G. Wells. When her daughter was murdered, she invented Mental Time Travel to try and change the past. She failed, but put up a hell of a fight by her account. And when Claudia guesses that losing a child must be the worst pain imaginable, Wells refutes her; the worst pain possible is whatever it was that she caused to the men who killed her daughter.
• Weeds: Nancy Botwin has this as her best quality. Just thinking about hurting Silas, Shane or Stevie is a bad idea.
• Wentworth Bea Smith is the ultimate Mother Bear towards teenage daughter Debbie. Protecting her and caring for her in every imaginable way possible even when behind bars. When [[Brandon kills Debbie by injecting her with a lethal dose of drugs Bea takes this trope to a whole new level.
• Westworld: Maeve's first role, before she became a madame at a saloon, was a homesteader who has a daughter. Unfortunately, the Man in Black raided their house and killed them. She starts to remember glimpses of her old life until she learns that her daughter is reassigned to another park. At the end of season one, she decided to stay in Westworld instead of heading to the mainland to look for her. Her entire season two storyline has looking for her daughter.
• The Witcher:
  • Queen Calanthe for her daughter Pavetta overlapping with Overprotective Mom. She tries very hard to fight against the literal fate the universe has in store for Pavetta. When she loses Pavetta to a shipwreck, she becomes a Grandma Wolf to Ciri and refuses to let Geralt take her away even though they’re bound by destiny only relenting when Cintra is conquered.
  • Yennefer in Episode 4 "Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials" becomes this for a baby after its mother whom Yennefer was protecting is killed by an assassin. Tragically though, as Yennefer carries the baby though a escape portal, the assassin throws a knife at them, it goes through her torso and kills the infant. Yennefer in despair tries reviving the baby but to no avail. After this event, Yennefer spends most of the season trying to restore her womb, wanting a child of her own. Averted with the mother of the said baby, who tried offering her child over to the assassin to save her own skin.
  • Tissaia although a Stern Teacher, does display a protective streak to her students as seen in the Final Battle. In Season 2 when Dirty Old Man and Jerkass sorcerer Stregbor performs a Mind Rape on a powerless Yennefer, Tissaia steps in to send the sonofabitch flying into a wall with her magic. Even before then when Yennefer was still missing in action, Tissaia made it very clear to Nilfgaard prisoner Cahir, she would put him through unimaginable pain for seemingly killing her favorite student, and makes good on her word.
• In Wolfblood, Maddy's mother is someone you don't want to mess with. She wolfs out when a group of older girls threaten Maddy. She's also quite scary with Rhydian when she thinks he's leading Maddy astray or risking exposure.
• The X-Files: Scully has ample opportunity in Season 9 to demonstrate her Mama Bear skills, since everyone and their brother is out to kidnap and/or kill William. In one episode, an assassin breaks into her apartment and locks her out of William's nursery. Just as he's about to smother the baby, Scully bursts in, guns blazing. She shoots him three times in the stomach and refuses to give him medical treatment or allow an ambulance to be called until he gives her answers about why he's after her son. Doggett gives her a What the Hell, Hero? moment over it, and she still doesn't want to back down. The guy is bleeding on the floor of William's room, and she takes him by the shirt to shout questions in his face. When Doggett tries to use the phone to call 911, he becomes the target of her wrath. Mama Bear indeed.

---