History Main / TrainingThePeacefulVillagers

->''"Set aside your peaceful ways''
->''And prepare for war''
->''Melt down your plowshares''
->''And take up your swords''

*** The Taliban then used this against the Coalition forces during the WarOnTerror. Although in this case, "training" consisted of giving local farmers a wad of money and a cell phone and telling them to call the only phone number in the directory when a Coalition convoy passed by the nearby road. And that's how you got the many, ''many'' ISAF deaths.

** Briefly mentionned during the Crew separation arc, where Brook tried to train the villagers who thought he was the devil (long story) into fighting back against the people who kidnapped some of their women. [[RealityEnsues It didn't work, since even with training, they had no real experience whatsoever, and Brook ended up fighting the kidnappers by himself.]]

* The Rabbitmen in ''LightNovel/ArifuretaFromCommonplaceToWorldsStrongest'' are so averse to violence that every other tribe of demi-humans considers them absolute cowards. They're ''not'' cowards, they just don't like fighting. (If they were cowards, they would have just surrendered [[spoiler:Shea]].) When Hajime decides to train them, they take to it with a literal vengeance. Turns out "be very fast, be very quiet" are traits useful to both shy prey animals and[[spoiler: assassins.]]

* The Rabbitmen in ''LightNovel/{{Arifureta Shokugyoude Sekai Saikyou}}'' are so averse to violence that every other tribe of demi-humans considers them absolute cowards. They're ''not'' cowards, they just don't like fighting. (If they were cowards, they would have just surrendered [[spoiler:Shea]].) When Hajime decides to train them, they take to it with a literal vengeance. Turns out "be very fast, be very quiet" are traits useful to both shy prey animals and[[spoiler: assassins.]]

* ''Series/TheMandalorian'' Chapter 4 "The Sanctuary" embraces the trope as the hero saves peaceful villagers from raiders and a rampant AT-ST. A {{Training Montage}} displays how far they have to go. {{The Hero}} finds a {{Love Interest|s}} -- a widow with whom he "wished he could" settle down with, but [[ItsNotYouItsMyEnemies he can't]].

* ''LordOfTheRings'' - the "Scouring of the Shire", where the pacifistic hobbits, previously subdued by the barrel-scrapings of Saruman's armies, are roused to fight by the return of the four adventurers of the Ring. Becoming an efficient guerilla army, they destroy Saruman's mooks and effectively become their own Rangers, now the original protectors of the Shire have moved to Minas Tirith.

* Combined with a StableTimeLoop in a particularly bizarre episode of ''Series/KungFu: The Legend Continues''. A time-displaced Peter is surprised to learn the besieged group of Shaolin monks he's landed among have no clue how to fight off their attackers. The rudimentary self-defense he teaches them eventually became the basis for the kung fu his Shaolin father taught him.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Merlin}}'' uses this trope after the title character's home village is attacked by raiders.

* In ''{{Roadwar 2000}}'', your gang can recruit the starving "Needy" people, who are hands down the most worthless of all the post-apocalypse city wanderers who can possibly join you... but with a good drill sergeant, you can promote these recruits into worthy gang members after only a few firefights or road battles to harden them.

* In ''[[VideoGame/GuildWars2]]'', there's a quest where you help build weapons and train villagers to fight the Forged. "Help X train" is a pretty common quest format in the game, although usually you're helping out other armed groups.

* {{Sharpe}} and Harper do this in "Sharpe's Peril".

* Hercules does this early in ''Film/{{Hercules 2014}}''. [[spoiler:It bites him in the ass when it turns out their leader is a tyrant.]]

* Done in the third season finale of ''[[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Buffy]]'' and many a character's CrowningMomentOfAwesome.

* This is in the backstory of Mortarion, Primarch of the Death Guard SpaceMarine legion in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''. He was adopted by one of the overlords of the planet he was found on, but later escaped into the valleys, where the air was breathable for normal humans, and trained them to resist the overlords (who used them as slaves and experimental subjects), forming the Death Guard (not originally Marines, but the legion took the name) to fight. The Salamanders' Primarch pulled off a similar trick, beating Eldar raiders around the head with his blacksmithing hammers.

* ''Film/TheMagnificentSeven'', for instance, is a direct western adaptation of Kurosawa's film.

* ''Webcomic/PlanetOfHats'' episode "[[http://www.mezzacotta.net/planetofhats/episodes/0026.html Errand of Mercy]]" presents Kirk and Spock's mission to protect the peaceful Organians from the ravages of the Klingons, and makes specific references to all three of ''Film/SevenSamurai'', ''Film/TheMagnificentSeven'', and ''Film/BattleBeyondTheStars''.

* ''Series/MacGyver'' likewise has to train a peaceful village in a [[BananaRepublic Republica del Platano]] to fight their drug lord oppressors, in the episode "The Golden Triangle."

There's a big bad gang/army out there that wants to sack the peaceful village for whatever reason. TheProtagonist can't stop them by himself for whatever reason. Either way, it's time to teach the villagers how to fight and defend themselves. Expect some complaining about "[[SuicidalPacifism losing their peaceful way of life.]]" If there's a WastelandElder around, expect them to back the hero and shush the young'un.

There's a big bad gang/army out there that wants to sack the peaceful village for whatever reason. TheProtagonist can't stop them by himself for whatever reason. Either way, it's time to teach the villagers how to fight and defend themselves. Expect some complaining about "[[SuicidalPacifism losing their peaceful way of life.]]" If there's a WastelandElder around, expect them to back the hero and shush the young'un.

The villagers will fight back with pitchforks, plowshares and {{frying pan|of doom}}s. It will also include many BambooTechnology traps involving previously innocuous items, like laundry buckets filled with boiling water. Usually, the outlaw band/army ''should'' have been able to beat them, had they taken the villagers seriously and fought with genuine strategy; but their downfall usually lay in rushing into traps.

In some instances, the villagers may have existed under the oppression of the hordes for years or even generations without even thinking of fighting back. Not, that is, until TheHero shows up. Bathing in the [[MagneticHero glow of his shining example]], the common people finally rise up to combat the {{Evil Overlord}}s.

With the enemy dead or on the run, and the villagers converted to the notion of violence for self-defense, [[ButNowIMustGo the heroes leave]].

* {{Subverted}} in ''Film/IpMan'', where our hero trains the workers at Quan's factory in Wing Chun to help them resist a group of bandits, only for the bandits to prevail anyway until Ip Man pulls a BigDamnHeroes moment.

The villagers will fight back with pitchforks, plowshares and frying pans. It will also include many BambooTechnology traps involving previously innocuous items, like laundry buckets filled with boiling water. Usually, the outlaw band/army ''should'' have been able to beat them, had they taken the villagers seriously and fought with genuine strategy; but their downfall usually lay in rushing into traps.

In some instances, the villagers may have existed under the oppression of the hordes for years or even generations without even thinking of fighting back. Not, that is, until TheHero shows up. Bathing in the [[MagneticHero glow of his shining example]], the common people finally rise up to combat the {{Evil Overlord}}s.

See also TheMagnificentSevenSamurai, TheParagon, PerfectPacifistPeople, HomeGuard, InstantMilitia. The village is often a DoomedHometown that fights back. Compare DefiantStoneThrow. Contrast OneManArmy, where this sort of thing is not necessary.

* One of the early plot points of [[TheUrthbloodSaga The Crimson Badger]], where Urthblood arrives at [[{{Literature/Redwall}} Redwall Abbey]] to help them prepare for the coming dark times he's seen in a [[FateAndProphecyTropes prophetic vision.]]

* A key job of the British Special Operations Executive and the American Office of Strategic Services during WorldWarTwo was to organise and train operatives to go behind enemy lines and train / supply resistance groups. Given the nature of the job, it was often a one-way journey.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' did a variation on this in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E2TheDaleks The Daleks]]". Rather than being ignorant the Thals were instead morally opposed to violence due to the wars of their past, which was OK until [[ViolenceReallyIsTheAnswer the Daleks decided to massacre them]].

** Played straighter in "A Private Little War" where Kirk must decide whether to arm and train the Hill People of a planet who are being attacked by previously peaceful Town People (and to make matters worse, he had surveyed the planet beforehand and found it a peaceful paradise, as well as befriended the Hill People personally). It turns out the Town People were [[spoiler:being given lessons in weapons development by the Klingons, allowing Kirk the legal pretext to arm the Hill People, while tortuously aware that he is starting an arms race that will plague the planet]]. It's an allegory to [[spoiler:the then-ongoing VietnamWar]].

** The downside to this is well illustrated in the aftermath of the war. Those same resistance groups that were so effective against the Axis powers were just as effective against colonial powers. Among the numerous groups helped was a group of resistance fighters in French Indo-China led by [[VietnamWar Ho Chi Minh.]]