How do I write a badass?

I need someone like this for what I'm currently writing, but I'm not sure how to make a badass. Any ideas?

Competence. Everything else doesn't mean anything if they're not competent.

1. Create expectations
2. Exceed expectations
3. ???
4. Profit!

Swordsman Troper — Reclaiming The Blade — Watch

Rhink rhe OP is asking "How can I write a Badass while avoiding God-Mode Sue?"

He who fights bronies should see to itthat he himself does not become a brony. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, Pinkie Pie gazes Also

^ Using Rule of Cool instead of What Do You Mean, It's Not Awesome?, and edit out anything that isn't cream of the crop entertaining? Not that that really helps, but that seems to be the biggest difference most of the time...

Anyways, don't pull your punches on the badass — you challenge those guys, follow through on your threat, hit them hard, and then have them overwhelm our expectations by doing something awesome. You Foreshadow that sort of stuff, of course, but that doesn't mean you can't shock the hell out of a reader by playing your cards right and Foreshadowing quietly.

Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit Deviantart.

Have them be competent in a plausible way. Basically, make sure you know exactly how they managed to do what they do, and be cautious about making them have rare advantages. (I'd only give them a rare advantage as the Anthropic Principle, myself.)

If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done.

^ You don't always need to be plausible. Anything Badass can be forgiven if it's awesome enough.

Make them unshakeable. Competence helps, but generally perseverence trumps it. A guy who takes a No Holds Barred Beat Down and then gets up for more qualifies as Badass just as easily as one who wins the fight handily.

edited 28th Apr '11 10:48:40 AM by TomViolence

"I remain just one thing, and one thing only — and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician."

That won't be too much of a problem becaause I write all my Sci Fi by the Rule of Cool.

"You don't always need to be plausible. Anything Badass can be forgiven if it's awesome enough."

Not as far as I'm concerned. Having it be implausible ruins even the most awesome scenes for me.

If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done.

Yes, plus the Rule of Cool is actually fairly subjective - not everyone finds the same things "cool". For example, I personally find Humongous Mecha more stupid than awesome (although this is partially because I consider them so implausible). So the Instant Awesome: Just Add Mecha! trope, if anything, hurts a work for me.

I'm not saying you should pander solely to what other people find "cool" - that would be ridiculous. But I don't think running your entire 'verse on the basis of Rule of Cool is a great idea either.

edited 1st May '11 3:44:28 PM by nrjxll

I'd argue even more so.

My main characters are often Made of Iron in the "hanging by the skin of his teeth" way: what would normally kill us just leaves them nearly dead. They are obviously beaten into a half-dead pulp, but they still struggle up to their feet, and they still keep on fighting. Sometimes, they are even defeated, and they still fight with all the resolution they'd have if there was a chance of success.

Boromir in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings is a pretty good example of this.

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

^ Boromir is the most unappreciated hero in Lot R. Love that guy.

I've been worrying about my badass too. I'm trying to write a sort of mythology-in-the-making, set in an ancient Wales equivalent. I've put a lot of research into making my world realistic to the period in every way possible, and in trying to make the characters realistic.

And then my one character breaks everything by being a demi-human supersoldier who blows up bridges and saves the kingdom and stuff. Which is the point, because this is a budding mythology and he's the hero, but I'm worried that especially compared to everyone else in the story with their normal limitations, he's going to be too over the top.

I'm trying to give him lots of leadership flaws and owe a lot of his success to secondary characters. Does anyone have experience with this, or other tips to offer?

O Manarha! Hatar-ue, dihalt urta. Vakat iu e Uratan, e banatar in.

Style. There is something that calls your attention to them, some quirk that stands out.

Creating a badass is a very tricky thing. First, you have to define what badass means. Is it a shotgun-blasting stud or is it a lithe and quick martial artist? Identify what you consider badass and work off of that.

With blood and rage of crimson red ripped from a corpse so freshly dead together with our hellish hate we'll burn you all that is your fate

You see those things over there called "sanity" and "common sense"? Yeah, fuck them.

I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial

Nous restons ici.

Basically make the most awesome, kickass, Rule of Cool person you can imagine. Now make his Villain even more awesome.

A badass is only as good as his villain, after all.

SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)

"Creating a badass is a very tricky thing. First, you have to define what badass means. Is it a shotgun-blasting stud or is it a lithe and quick martial artist? Identify what you consider badass and work off of that."

I think a badass would be defined as a Crowning Character of Awesome that either has a Crowning Moment of Awesome in the plot or is easily assumed to have had one in his Backstory . A Non Action Hero is not automatically a Badass no matter how well drawn he is. But once he starts having crowning moments he will Take a Level in Badass. By contrast a hero who is assumed from the get go to be capable of great deeds and who has in fact likely done great deeds in the past is automatically a badass. He has to be both a memorable character and be associated with memorable achievements.

In some ways this is a subjective trope. But I think this is a good working definition to use when deciding whether we think a given character to be a badass.

"Creating a badass is a very tricky thing. First, you have to define what badass means. Is it a shotgun-blasting stud or is it a lithe and quick martial artist? Identify what you consider badass and work off of that."

Or you could go Up To Eleven with a shotgun-blasting quick marital artist :P

I totally hate my avatar. Just saying.

Feel free to disagree with me, but I think that "badass" is synonymous with "extraordinary" — characters who think and perform well above normal abilities and expectations. People who hold fast to their beliefs and fight tirelessly to make the world a better place are, in my opinion, just as viable as characters who specialize in punching the embodiment of the apocalypse in the face.

One way to think about making your badass might be having a character or force weighing him/her down — someone or something that says "You can't do it!" or "It's impossible!" Raising the stakes for the badass to overcome makes the triumph that much sweeter. Generally, the heroes always win; make them work for it, and SHOW that the odds are against them, to accent their ability.

Out of curiosity, though, what do you have so far in the way of your badass? Are there any details you can share? Or is the character still in the early stages?

edited 28th Aug '11 5:52:51 PM by Voltech44

My Wattpad — A haven for delightful degeneracy

Re: Plausibility: Dr Mcninja has one of the baddest asses I've ever seen, and he does it as implausible way as humanly possible ever.

Or alternately his sidekick Gordito, who doesn't have the same nerdiness/insanity, but dual wields pistols from the back of a velociraptor.

The qualities of a badass really depend on the work in question. Mcninja is a parody/comedy/satire/who even knows anymore, and so implausibility works for it. Things that want to be taken seriously are different.

Still Sheepin'

If he owes his success to other characters, make that 1) obvious*

^{Not to the point of "Well, they would have won without him" but "If X hadn't done Y, then Bad Dude would have been killed there."}

and 2) make sure he doesn't appreciate them properly. That'll help avoid God-Mode Sue while keeping in Badass.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

I think the most important aspect of any badass character is understatement, and failure.

Yeah, I did just singlehandedly take out an entire herd of man-eating tiger-beasts with nothing but a pistol and the Colorado River. All in a day's work, bitches.

And yeah, then I got the shit kicked out of me by the one man-eating tiger-beast that got the drop on me, but you know what I did next? I got the fuck back up.

This is narrated, of course, from within said badass's head. I think badassery is helped by a thouroghly unimpressed, dispassionate narrator and a score of people who either don't realize or don't care what kind of badassery just went down.

X-men, for example, is chock full of Badasses, (by my own personal definition of badass). Mystique, for example, and (unquestionable king of Badass) Wolverine. These work well with the "understatement" aspect because the viewers are generally the only people who realize, even partially, the extent of their badassery. Wolverine in particular has no idea (and couldn't give less of a fuck) how awesome he is.

the Terminators—incapable of caring how awesome they are.

Kissin' Kate Barlow from holes—badass— too throughly emotionally jaded to care. It's like she found herself incapable of feeling on the level of intensity that other people lived, so she had to turn up the intensity of her own existance to badass proportions and she's still barely managing to keep herself busy.

There are also the showier, I-am-creative-and-flashy-for-my-own-amusement-fuck-the-rest-of-you badasses to look into like Batman and Magneto, who are both still underrated in their own ways.

"That'll help avoid God Mode Sue while keeping in Badass. "

No, pretty sure that'll make him an unlikable dick of a character. Badasses don't owe their sucesses to other people.