History Main / TheButcher

** Sheridan's nickname among Minbari is "Starkiller", for his taking out their flagship ''Black Star'' during the Earth/Minbari War. This was the Earth Alliance's only major victory in a largely one-sided war, making the use of the moniker a sign of hypocritical sour grapes. The nickname is derogatory on the Minbari side because Sheridan destroyed the ''Drala Fi'' ("black star" in Minbari Warrior language) in an act of subterfuge and not in open combat, basically calling him a war criminal. [[{{Hypocrite}} Again, this is ignoring the fact that the Black Star answered the false distress signal in order to destroy the supposedly helpless ship.]]

* "The Butcher" in the first ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'' game is a demon with a huge cleaver who's taken up residence in the church and slaughtered many of the townsfolk. The very first boss of the game, he's easily the hardest monster you'll face for several floors. He also makes a cameo appearance in ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} III: The Frozen Throne'' as an OptionalBoss during the Alliance campaign. He reappears in ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'' and ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm''.

* ''Film/{{Culloden}}'' features the Duke of Cumberland, who was known as "The Butcher" among Jacobites, and in modern times, Scottish nationalists. He squashed the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, and accounts of his character vary greatly: some sources cite him as a ruthless and vicious man who terrorised his own men as well as the enemy, while others have him enforcing strict discipline on his men to ensure fair treatment of surrendering Jacobites. One accusation leveled at him was that instead of tending to wounded enemy soldiers on the battlefield (as the warfare etiquette of the time dictated), he simply slaughtered them - hence, "The Butcher."
* Marshal Rodolfo Graziani in ''Lion of the Desert'' (1981) is sent by UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini to subjugate a native rebellion in Libya. The rebels are justly concerned over the arrival of the notorious 'Butcher', though in truth Graziani earned this nickname as a result of his activities in Libya, not before he arrived.

* Tyrin Lieph, the VillainProtagonist of the ''Franchise/MassEffect'' fanfic ''The Council Era'', has received a reputation as The Butcher from his detractors due to the mass-murdering of the dezban race and the mass-suicides of the manaban race that he directly caused.

* In ''Literature/{{Aeon 14}}'', protagonist Major Tanis Richards is known in Sol as the "Butcher of Toro", but it's indicated early on that it's undeserved. [[spoiler:After leaving Sol on a colony ship, she tells the real story of Toro to her LoveInterest. She was investigating a CultColony, discovered the cult leader had turned everyone on the planet into NighInvulnerable mindless monsters with BioAugmentation, and was forced to order an OrbitalBombardment that destroyed the entire dwarf planet. The circumstances were then covered up for political reasons and she had to take the fall.]]

* The KoreanWebtoon ''Hello Hellper'' takes place in Hell and has a loan shark who's dressed like a butcher. He kills anyone who can't repay his loan, his weapon is a Type III BladeBelowTheShoulder that nearly kills a GrimReaper, his cause of death is listed as "slaughter", and there is some indication that when he died no one mourned him.

* Billy Butcher (whose father was a baker, ironically enough), who almost everyone just calls "Butcher", of ''Comicbook/TheBoys''. He's a violent, scheming, manipulative bastard, and he's one of the good guys... for a very limited definition of "good".

* A squad of airmen in ''ComicBook/{{Arrowsmith}}'' earns the nickname "Butchers of Holbrück."
* ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMarvel'': In their 'Universe' personnel files, ít is said Seacon leader Snaptrap earned the moniker 'The Butcher of the Bogs' by singlehandedly massacring a regiment of Autobots in the Toxic Sludge Swamps.

* Victor Zsasz of Batman is sometimes known as The Butcher. He's an AxCrazy [[TheSociopath sociopathic]] SerialKiller who (according to the ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamSeries'', anyway) occasionally mutilates his victims in addition to killing them.
* ''ComicBook/AtomicRobo'' volume 9 features "Butcher" Caldwell - as Doc Holiday puts it, he didn't get the name because of his charm.
* Sith scientist Vul Isen from ''[[Franchise/StarWarsLegends Star Wars]] ComicBook/{{Legacy}}'' is nicknamed "the Butcher of Dac" after creating a toxin that successfully wipes out 80% of all life on the Mon Calamari homeworld, Dac.

* The picture in the thumbnail, is Zanipolo Joyce aka "Butcher" Joyce from ''ComicBook/TheDarkness''. Butcher Joyce is a friend of Jackie's and a [[CleanupCrew cleaner for the mob]], who's there to chop up bodies and make the evidence go away.

* Tyrin Lieph, the VillainProtagonist of the ''Franchise/MassEffect'' fanfic ''The Council Era'', has received a reputation as The Butcher from his detractors due to the mass-murdering of the dezban race and the mass-suicides of the manaban race that he directly caused.
* In ''Fanfic/DauntlessAlloraGale'' Lelouch has the unfortunate nickname "Butcher of Area Eighteen" after unknowingly killing several hundred civilians hiding in a military fortress. Schneizel kept the name out of the Britannian media to maintain his image as a war hero.
** Lelouch ultimately exploits this reputation to lure out Kenshiki by [[spoiler:staging the faked execution of their families]].
* Matt in ''Fanfic/StardustArad'' gained this moniker from an incident where he had to shoot an insurgent ChildSoldier earlier in his military career.

* In ''Film/{{Wanted}}'', the Butcher is a brutal knife fighter.
* In ''Film/{{Delicatessen}}'', the main antagonist Clapet has an apartment building and runs a butcher shop on the ground floor. He lures unemployed people into working for him, and then murders and butchers them in order to [[ImAHumanitarian feed himself and his tenants]]. The protagonist, Louison, is one such unsuspecting victim.
* In ''Film/WildWildWest'', General "Bloodbath" [=McGrath=] is also known as "The Butcher of New Liberty", for the annihilation of a town founded by freed slaves [[spoiler:that he didn't actually commit]].
* Bill "The Butcher" Cutting, the MagnificentBastard extraordinaire from ''Film/GangsOfNewYork''. Bill runs his gang from his butcher shop and uses his skill with knives to his advantage in gang rumbles. He even tutors the art of knife-fighting using a suspended pig carcass.

* ''Film/TheRunningMan'''s Ben Richards is known as "the Butcher of Bakersfield" after the incident where, as a military helicopter pilot, he allegedly fired on a crowd of innocent people for no real reason. The fact of the matter is that he was ''resisting'' the direct order to do so but was framed by the government because they couldn't use him after that outburst.
* In the DTV movie ''Film/TheButcher'', Creator/EricRoberts character has this nickname. He hates it.
* ''Film/IndestructibleMan'' is about "Butcher" Benton, who [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin becomes nigh-indestructible]] after being brought BackFromTheDead.

* ''Film/LeBoucher'' (''The Butcher'') is ''exactly'' this trope. The life of a spinster schoolmistress in a small French village is turned upside down by the arrival of an ex-soldier who is taking over the village butcher's shop. An Indochina vet, he has little quirks. One of which is murder...
* The Butcher in ''Film/FlagOfIron'' is a ruthless, bloodthirsty murderer who, when not killing people, masquerades... as a butcher in a market.
* Subverted in ''Film/TheGunsOfNavarone''. A team member known as "The Butcher of Barcelona" is actually [[ShellShockedVeteran burnt out after years of killing]] and gets killed himself when he hesitates to kill an enemy.
* ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanDeadMenTellNoTales'' has Salazar's title of "El Matador del Mar" translated as The Butcher Of the Sea (the actual Spanish term is ''Carnicero'', ''matador'' is simply "killer").
* ''Film/BabyDriver'' features an ArmsDealer called The Butcher, who describes the weapons he sells as though they were cuts of pork.
* ''Film/NightTrainToLisbon'': Mendez the secret policeman was called "the Butcher of Lisbon".
* ''Film/AirForceOne'': The objective of the former soviet terrorists was to use the kidnapped First Family as a bargain chip to force the Russian government to free General Radek, the "Butcher of the Balkans" and a [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed stand-in]] of the late Slobodan Milosevic (see the Real Life folder below).

* The guerilla 'El Matarife' from the novel ''Literature/{{Sharpe}}'s Honour'' - 'The Butcher' (well, The Slaughterman) only in Spanish.
* Geralt of Rivia, Literature/TheWitcher, gained the nickname "The Butcher of Blaviken" after his confrontation with a really twisted [[FracturedFairyTale Snow White-expy]]. Whose own nickname was Shrike (a species of small predatory bird, sometimes known as the butcher-bird), appropriately enough.
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''
** The series introduced King Cleon, who styles himself "the Great" but who most refer to as The Butcher King. He did use to be an actual butcher, but lives up to the traditional implications as well. Also, Gregor Clegane's in-house torturer is known simply as The Tickler.
** After Cleon's death via BodyguardBetrayal, Cleon II becomes King, [[KlingonPromotion but is murdered by a barber who becomes King in turn]]. The new, new King is always referred to as King Cutthroat.
* Cassius Mass in SpaceOpera series ''Literature/LucifersStar'' he is known as both [[RedBaron The Fire Count]] by his side of the war and The Butcher of Kolthas Station by his enemies.
* In ''Literature/WildCards'', superpowered secret serviceman Billy Ray goes by 'Carnifex', although he's more of a violent Jerkass than anything else.
* One of the characters in ''[[Literature/{{Redwall}} The Bellmaker]]'' is a shrike. In both the book and RealLife, shrikes are also known as butcher birds. In the book, the nickname comes from being completely AxCrazy. (In real life, the nickname comes from [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice what they do with their prey]].)

* ''The Literature/VorkosiganSaga'': Aral "Butcher of Komarr" Vorkosigan. A rare not-actually-[[EarnYourTitle earned]] title, though.
** In the back story the Pierre Le Sanguinerre was warleader for Dorca the Just and served him whenever Dorca wanted an unruly Vor to be given...[[PayEvilUntoEvil justice.]] His name is French for "Bloody Pete".
* Dirk Provin, the protagonist of Jennifer Fallon's ''Literature/SecondSons'' trilogy acquired the nickname 'The Butcher of Elcast'. This was the result of being given credit for the Lion of Senet's scheme to pressurize an enemy by executing people at random until the man gave in, and was a case of twisting Dirk's words. The reputation sticks with him and he had at times to take advantage of it, as well as crafting a ruthless persona. He was barely 16 when he acquired the name.

* In the ''Literature/FloraSegunda'' books, an important figure in the setting's history is called the Butcher Brakespeare. The details establish the Butcher as a legendary {{Fiery Redhead}}ed LadyOfWar with a whip. In her teens, she was a CuteBruiser. In [[spoiler: the time traveled to]], she wasn't grown up yet.

* In Melanie Rawn's ''Literature/TheExiles'' Series, Auvry Feiran is referred to as "The Butcher of Ambrai" because he led a major military attack on the city that utterly destroyed it. Oh, and it was the home of his ex-wife, their young daughter, and her entire extended family.
* In ''Literature/BestServedCold'' by Joe Abercrombie, Monza's epithet is "The Butcher of Caprile", thanks to the bloody sack of that city by her army. [[spoiler: It's actually another undeserved case; she gave explicit orders not to do so, but while reporting to her boss her brother countermanded them.]]

* ''Literature/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea'' GreatWhiteHunter Ned Land accuses Nemo of this when Nemo [[KickTheDog Kick The Cachalots]] in a massacre.
-->''"Well, sir," replied the Canadian, whose enthusiasm had somewhat calmed; "it is a terrible spectacle, certainly. But I am not a butcher. I am a hunter, and I call this a butchery."''
-->''"It is a massacre of mischievous creatures," replied the Captain; "and the Nautilus is not a butcher's knife."''
* Skol the Butcher, an outlaw prince ruling his own WretchedHive, in the Creator/RobertEHoward story "The Blood of Belshazzar".
* Backyard abortionist 'Butcher George' in the Literature/PhryneFisher novel ''Cocaine Blues''.

* Colonel Kassad from the ''Literature/HyperionCantos'' is known as "The Butcher of South Bressia." In this case, it's something of a backhanded compliment: the same brutally efficient tactics that got him the epithet also made him the only person to make any headway in the war.
* Galerion [=DeSandra=], AKA the Butcher of Demarchen, an antagonist in the medieval fantasy [[Literature/TalesOfTheBranionRealm The Granite Shield]] who specializes in massacring innocents.

** In ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment'', Sam Vimes is referred to by the Borogravians as "The Butcher" or "Butcher Vimes". Anyone remotely familiar with the character of Sam Vimes will find this insanely funny (which is the point.) When Vimes meets up with [[SweetPollyOliver the protagonist]] and her fellow soldiers, he tells them Borogravia "needs to work on their propaganda techniques".
** While he is never directly called "the Butcher" there, in ''Literature/TheFifthElephant'' Vimes is thought to have killed "thirty men and a dog" during a battle with bandits and has the damnedest time explaining how it really went.
** In a sense, Vimes's reputation is not undeserved. As we see in ''Literature/{{Thud}}'', Sam Vimes is quite capable of slaughtering his way through a group of armed soldiers equipped with axes and Steampunk-style flamethrowers. He was possessed by a quasi-demonic entity of pure vengeance at the time. But given that he managed to expel said entity by sheer inner force after the fight, that may not count. Vimes probably deserves the title, at least from the point of view of his enemies, by virtue of extraordinary badassery.
** In ''Literature/TheLastHero'', CardCarryingVillain Evil Harry has a henchman simply named "Butcher" (Cohen The Barbarian himself approves). Harry's "Butcher" is an archetypal dungeon keeper -- meaning he's fat, lazy, gullible, and [[TheGuardsMustBeCrazy keeps his dungeon keys where the heroes can easily reach them]].
* In Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold's ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'' books, Aral Vorkosigan earns the name "The Butcher of Komarr" for supposedly having ordered the massacre of the two hundred strong Komarran Senate after they surrendered on terms during the Conquest of Komarr. In fact, he had nothing to do with it, and it was the sort of military behavior he abhorred - so much so that he murdered the man who had ordered the massacre with his bare hands in a blind rage. However, he was in charge at the time, so he got blamed despite everything -- plus his political enemies kept saying there had been "secret orders", a rumor he found it unsurprisingly impossible to disprove. Later in his life, he admitted that he had occasionally used the weight of his undeserved reputation for intimidation -- since he had to pay the reputational price anyway, he felt he had the right to use it that way.

* ''Fanfic/ShadowsOverMeridian'': Vera Baxley's grandfather was known among the Mogriffs as the "Nest Butcher" for the sheer brutality he showed when he took part in driving them out of their nesting grounds, torturing and slaughtering any of their kind that he captured, even hatchlings and eggs.

* ''VideoGame/DeadRising'' has Larry Chiang, a cannibalistic butcher who serves as the FinalBoss of 72 Hour Mode and [[spoiler:kills Carlito to turn him into ground meat, leading Frank to defeat the butcher.]]

* One of ''VideoGame/DeadRising'''s bosses, Larry, is an actual butcher who worked for the mall's grocery store before all hell broke loose and he, like a good amount of the other survivors of the zombie outbreak, went criminally insane. He isn't outright homicidal as his title would suggest and is disturbingly cheerful and friendly when he views Frank as a "customer", but he's gone obsessed with his job and is encountered after he's caught hunting for new "meat" wherever he can get it [[spoiler: and finding it in the form of the injured BigBad]]. Since zombie meat comes rotten, [[ImAHumanitarian he's eager to serve humans to humans]].

* Wannabe-Stalinist Nicolae Ceaușescu (his brutal austerity policies put him closer in line with Mussolini) was known as "The Butcher of Bucharest" for ordering the slaughter of civilian demonstrators. This was right before his fall from power, when the Romanians finally got sick of him and his harridan wife plundering the treasury. The couple fled the country via helicopter, but hilariously crashed into the Black Sea due to overloading it with lucre. He was quickly found guilty in a show trial and executed on Christmas Day.

* Saddam Hussein actually embraced the nickname "The Butcher of Baghdad" in an interview, saying that it implied a strong leader. A former street thug-turned-strongman dictator, he was allowed to fester for far too long; he took over the U.S.-backed Ba'ath Party and purged all of his potential rivals, including close friends he'd known for years. By the end, Saddam and his sons had become self-parodies on par with the Kim Dynasty. (''Urban Dictionary'' called him the real-life Wario.) Saddam was so violent and creepy, lifelong lefties like Creator/ChristopherHitchens became hardcore neo-conservatives thanks to him. Even in death, Saddam poses a dilemma in that regard, since he was accidentally put in power by the U.S., and his removal was very costly: Donald Trump largely campaigned on driving the neo-cons out of his party, and ISIS took over the country for a while.

** A whole three Nazis were called "The Butcher of Warsaw": Oskar Dirlewanger, leader of an especially savage and depraved SS squadron called the "Dirlewanger Brigade"; Josef Meisinger, Warsaw police commander notorious for his brutal reprisals; and Heinz Reinefarth, a Nazi general accused of murdering thousands of civilians during the Warsaw Uprising. In addition, Hans Frank, the Nazi General-Governor of Poland, was known as "The Butcher of Poland".

* Several UsefulNotes/{{Nazi|Germany}}s of note, as they took part in the regime's infamous war crimes and/or crimes against humanity during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. These are the same guys who stuck crossbones on their caps even though it made German citizens "become sick", according to Heinrich Himmler they wanted to inspire fear, not respect. A few others earned epiphets like "The Beast of X".

** A high Nazi official, Baron Otto von Bolschwing, was called "The Butcher of Bucharest".

* In the ''Literature/FloraSegunda'' books, an important figure in the setting's history is called the Butcher Brakespeare. The details establish the Butcher as a legendary {{Fiery Redhead}}ed LadyOfWar [[WhipItGood with a whip.]] In her teens, she was a CuteBruiser. In [[spoiler: the time traveled to]], she wasn't grown up yet.

* VideoGame/SaintsRow PlayerCharacter "The Boss" is also called "The Butcher of Stilwater".[[note]]It's with one L, bitch![[/note]] By [[VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird the third game,]] they have singlehandedly killed at least hundreds. Then SerialEscalation comes along.

* In ''VideoGame/SilentHillOrigins'', there is a humanoid monster called "The Butcher" that serves as a major antagonist. It drags around a large knife and wears a blood-stained smock.
** Which is an expy of the series' original butcher, [[VideoGame/{{Silent Hill 2}} Pyramid Head]].

* In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}'' the player can choose from a variety of nicknames before entering the boxing ring. Among those are names like "Butcher", "Chainsaw", etc.
** Fallout 2 also has the leader of the Slaver Guild, a man named "Metzger". Metzger is German for "butcher", and in a ShoutOut to ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'', the first thing he says is "Ah, fresh meat!"

* ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' has two examples

* "The Butcher" in the first ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'' game is a demon with a huge cleaver who's taken up residence in the church and slaughtered many of the townsfolk. The very first boss of the game, he's easily the hardest monster you'll face for several floors.
** He also makes a cameo appearance in ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} III: The Frozen Throne'' as a BonusBoss during the Alliance campaign.
** There's a boss in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' called The Butcher, a cleaver and meathook wielding Abomination who even says "Aah, fresh meat!" when pulled. This was a deliberate shout out to the guy above.
*** There's also another boss nicknamed "The Butcher," his real name is Theolen Krastinov. [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate You know when a doctor is referred to by this title, he's absolutely not a nice guy.]]
** And now he's back in ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'', as the boss of Act I. He's got new abilities too, such as a meat hook to grab you, a charge move, and others. The floor in his arena periodically catches fire...
*** ...and back again in the Reaper of Souls expansion as a rift-guardian named ''Man-Carver''.
** And he's back again... in ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm''

* ''Film/CarryOnBehind''. Professor Crump wakes up after being knocked unconscious to find a strange man (Fred the butcher) leaning over him. When Fred introduces himself by profession, Crump screams in terror.

* ''Film/SchindlersList'': While never referred to as such within the film proper, SS Officer Amon Goeth was known as the Butcher of Plaszow in RealLife, having achieved notoriety for killing, abusing, and torturing prisoners on a whim. Also excluded from the film is the fact that the Nazi Government suspended him for his severe mistreatment of prisoners.

--> Godber: (nervously) "So what did he do?"
--> Fletch: "Fiddled the VAT on his sausages."

* On Website/TheOtherWiki, the title "Butcher of the Balkans" leads to ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butcher_of_the_Balkans a disambiguation page]]'', because of how many different people have held that title. The most famous of them, the late Slobodan Milosevic, was also known as "The Butcher of Belgrade."

* In a similar vein is Azatbek Omurbekov, a Russian commander termed "The Butcher of Bucha" for leading the Russian troops who murdered and raped hundreds of Ukrainian civilians during the Battle of Bucha.

** There is a minor AntiHero, created during the 90s DorkAge, called the Butcher.

* Fritz Haarmann, a German serial killer active in the early 1900s, was also known as The Butcher of Hannover (and referred to as "Fritz Haarmann the Butcher" in the Macabre song of the same name).

* The eponymous ''Film/TheIndestructibleMan'' is Charles "The Butcher" Benson.

* In the film version of ''Film/{{Wanted}}'', the Butcher is a brutal knife fighter.

* The film ''Film/{{Necronomicon}}'' (which tries to be an {{anthology}} of Creator/HPLovecraft stuff but [[InNameOnly has very little to do]] with anything he wrote) has an episode that starts with cops tracking a SerialKiller called the Butcher, but then the story gets hijacked by [[FaceFullOfAlienWingWong pro-life aliens]]. Apparently, the story was meant to be an adaptation of ''Literature/TheWhispererInDarkness''.

* The 1969 Creator/ClaudeChabrol movie ''Film/LeBoucher'' (The Butcher) is ''exactly'' this trope. The life of a spinster schoolmistress in a small French village is turned upside down by the arrival of an ex-soldier who is taking over the village butcher's shop. An Indochina vet, he has little quirks. One of which is murder...