What exactly is a "Badass"?

Hi there!

edited 11th Jan '15 10:20:23 PM by LustyVenusianJuuza

Short answer: The Badass tropes are among the most broken on the site, so you're not alone in being confused in how they're supposed to be used.

While there are some critera you could objectively take to illustrate badassery, people like to gush about characters they like, and putting them on tropes like these is one way to do it.

Relevant thread to check out: Badass tropes.

Speaking personally, I've always treated Badass itself purely as a supertrope/index for the other, more specific, badass tropes, at least some of which do seem tropable. I don't see the point in adding examples for Badass itself.

I don't think the site would really lose anything by making Bad Ass an exampleless supertrope, and calling it omnipresent.

Badass is not an omnipresent trope, though.

Omnipresent means everywhere at all times, Badass most certainly is not that.

Neither is antagonist

edited 6th Jan '15 6:26:15 AM by crazysamaritan

Badass is not omnipresent, but it is so broad that it really only works for example writing when it's broken out into subtropes. The reason for this is that as soon as you start describing how someone is a badass (according to our rules) it will naturally start to fit into one of the more specific versions.

Listing Badass as a Super-Trope and then putting all the related tropes in sub-bullets beneath it is a specific violation of our Example Indentation rules.

edited 6th Jan '15 6:53:59 AM by Fighteer

Are we still limiting the definition of "Badass" to physical combat capability, as I was told?

I always thought that was a terrible idea, because it meant that someone like a Science Hero or Guile Hero with no combat aptitude would no longer qualify.

I completely agree, you can be badass at many other things besides combat.

Except that the stereotypical, Popcultural Osmosis definition of Badass is a person who kicks ass while chewing gum, or at least manages to Keep Calm and Carry On in extremely difficult circumstances. Clearly we're starting to move beyond that in some ways because we're having this debate in the first place, but if we're going to expand the definition of the trope to anyone who does anything even slightly cool or out of the ordinary, it'll be too broad to be useful.

Again, that's why it's a supertrope. Look at the subtropes. If you can't figure out one that applies, then it's probably not a good example. If they are a Science Hero, then list them as a Science Hero. They do not also need to be listed under Badass.

edited 6th Jan '15 7:47:41 AM by Fighteer

That is a viewpoint of badass that I think is wrong.

Would person who won 4 elections, brought a country out of depression, won world war 2 etc etc all from a wheelchair but never saw a day of combat not count as a badass? If a work is completely centered around a non-action competition like oh say a 'Children card game' or Majong and win constantly, in usually the flashiest way possible, to become the world champion not count as badass? A guy who is so good at fighting videogames that others will not play vs him because there is a 0% chance that they could win is not badass?

Win a war by making the atomic bomb is not badass? It certainly is not 'heroic'.

Things like Badass Leader Badass Politician, Badass Strategist, Badass Gamer (not always video games) very much exist and really should be written in the badass category.

edited 6th Jan '15 7:53:51 AM by Memers

So YKTTW them. We do have the ability to create new tropes where they fit. Just make sure that we don't already have them under different names.

Frankly, I would not consider someone who can win at video games to be a Badass. That just doesn't work.

edited 6th Jan '15 7:53:17 AM by Fighteer

You can not YKTTW a them because the site restricts badass as only combat, no one can be badass in any other way but being a mindless brute. I had this discussion in a Repair Shop thread, forget which one, about it and got shot down. It's rather insulting to characters and people who value brains over brawn.

And there are entire series based around games, Saki is an entire series based around Mahjong for one and other series completely based on nerd culture, the gamer I was thinking of came from Genshiken who was so good that no one in the series could ever actually hit him in a fighting game, he was that badass at it.

edited 6th Jan '15 8:04:28 AM by Memers

Well, I'm afraid we can't really help you there. Your personal dictionary doesn't get to have precedence over common usage.

Looking up the definition of Badass gives me 'a formidably impressive person.' There is nothing in that that says it is limited to just physical fighting.

Badass is just pointlessly vague. It gets thrown in for anyone that's not a complete pushover. Hate seeing that trope get thrown around.

HI THERE!

edited 11th Jan '15 10:20:56 PM by LustyVenusianJuuza

Tony Hawk is certainly pretty awesome, although we can't apply tropes like Badass to Real Life individuals. Lenin ... that's more doubtful. He didn't distinguish himself (that I know of) for physical bravery or combat ability and his ideology led directly to uncountable human suffering. Is Yu-Gi a badass? Sure, why not?

The problem here is exactly what's been stated already: the concept is too vague to be tropable. Calling someone a badass offers no useful information to the reader, any more than calling them "awesome", "cool", or "urgnlinenwerk". What matters is the context — the form their awesomeness takes, and that is what establishes an actual trope. That trope is never Badass by itself; it is always a subtrope or a related trope.

edited 6th Jan '15 9:16:31 AM by Fighteer

Hi there!

edited 11th Jan '15 10:21:39 PM by LustyVenusianJuuza

You were incorrect to add that example for the reasons we have given above: it is too vague to be a trope by itself. You should find a more specific subtrope that applies.

As an aside, if that's the quality of your grammar on the wiki, you're headed for a suspension.

edited 6th Jan '15 9:18:05 AM by Fighteer

Hi There!

edited 11th Jan '15 10:22:52 PM by LustyVenusianJuuza

Tropes by definition do not apply to real people. We allow those Real Life examples on a kind of sufferance. Obsessing over who and what is considered a badass is really pointless.

I am going to agree with Memers in saying that limiting badass to just fighting prowess is mind-boggling because the term is much wider than that under any definition.

Hi There!

edited 11th Jan '15 10:23:14 PM by LustyVenusianJuuza