Nun Too Holy

Vows? I'll show you some vows!

"Have you come to give confession? I will gladly accept your tithe...in BLOOD."

— Double, Skullgirls

One would hope that most members of a Noble Profession, though human and prone to imperfection, are decent folk who make an honest effort to uphold the basic moral and ethical standards one might associate with the position.

And then there's this character.

She's a nun, at least that's what it says on her job resume. However, she acts nothing like what she's claiming to be. Instead, she can be violent, destructive, steal from the collection plate, wear revealing clothing, be perverted like the best of them, forget all about her chastity vows, take God's name in vain and swear so much she'd make a sailor cry, not to mention that she seems to have ideas or notions that directly contradict the Church she belongs to. In other words, she's anything but the normal image of a member of the Church you'd expect. It leads one to wonder how she managed to land this job in the first place. Like the Bunny-Ears Lawyer, it is possible that she's actually good at parts of her job... once you bypass all the rest of the stuff she does.

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One of three things usually occur.

1. The character's coworkers decide they've had enough and kick her out. May be Played for Drama.
2. The character is punished or called out for her actions, but the response is halfhearted and the character remains. May be Played for Laughs.
3. The character is revealed to have a redeeming trait that makes her immune to getting the boot.

Additionally, on rare occasions, this character type will become Team Mom to a Badass Crew, Good-Enough Shepherd to a group of Darker and Edgier variety of heros a more traditional Apron Matron would run screaming from.

The character's reasons for being the way they are may vary:

1. In some cases, it seems likely the character never had any interest in performing their role adequately; they are just using the position and the church (or other organization) to further their own ends, whether that is a source of funds to embezzle from to a front for an Elaborate Underground Base. In this case they might be anything from the Big Bad to an Anti-Hero leader working within the church to fight its enemies behind The Masquerade.
2. In other cases the character simply finds that the air of semi - respectability her position gives her is just too convenient to give up. The character in this case is often Mrs. ViceGal, a traditional hard - drinking Anti-Hero, or an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain.
3. Most often, the character is a sympathetic Hero with an F in Good who is sincere about responding to The Call but can't seem to bring themselves to control their excesses.
4. Alternately, they may be a fusion of Badass Preacher and Lady of War, ^note The arrogant and manipulative variant forming a one-woman Church Militant. This type can range from nun in sour habit to a living incarnation of Good is Not Nice. This variation often openly acknowledges their own hypocrisy, but consider their own vices trivial compared to the evil they oppose. Fairly common in Urban Fantasy and punk generas.
5. Another possibility is that she's simply one small (or not so small) example of what happens when the whole Church becomes rotten to the core.
6. Occasionally in historical fiction, the character will have been forced into the role by family, the Church, or society and will have no real aptitude or calling.
7. This trope is often subverted; the character turns out never to have been a nun, but is an imposter or simply doesn't correct others' confusion.

When punished for their vagrancies or faced with a Moral Event Horizon that pushes them beyond even their own limits of acceptable behavior, this character can variously Jump Off The Slippery Slope and become The Unfettered answering to no one but themselves, turn against their order, or even suddenly realize how far they have fallen and seek redemption and reform

Much less Truth in Television than it used to be. Convents in the Middle Ages were used as dumping grounds for unruly noblewomen, who made equally unruly nuns and possibly the Trope Maker for Naughty Nuns.

This trope can apply to any member of a religious order- any character whose nominal role is that of a holy person, moral leader, etc. can be Nun Too Holy, though as the name suggests, this is most commonly used to describe a female character. For specifically male characters of this sort, see Dirty Old Monk. Sometimes overlaps with Nuns Are Funny, Nuns Are Mikos, Nuns Are Spooky, Naughty Nuns, Sexy Priest, or The Vicar. If the character is sincere but mistreats those they are supposed to cater to, they may be a Jerkass Woobie.

For characters who take their role as a moral leader too seriously rather than not seriously enough, see Knight Templar or Well-Intentioned Extremist. Compare also the Sinister Minister and Churchgoing Villain. Don't confuse with Bad Habits, which is about villains dressing like nuns or priests even though they're not.

Take into consideration the actual setting when adding examples — if everyone is dressed like Naughty Nuns in the Church, then simply wearing a sexy nun outfit isn't enough to be Nun Too Holy, nor is innocent mock-flirtation with no intent to act upon the attraction. This trope is about a character that flagrantly and unapologetically violates doctrine, appropriate behavior for their position, common courtesy, or all of the above, on a regular basis.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Asia from High School D×D is a subversion. She's a nun who was turned into a devil, but she's still as sweet and kind as she was while as a human...though as one special shows, it's not for lack of trying. In recognition of this, she eventually gets a special exemption from Archangel Michael to continue praying to God, even though that's usually forbidden to (and painful for) devils. (At least in the manga he apologizes for even needing to provide an exemption; the need for rules recognizing state of existence above faith or actual virtue is a reflection of a current flaw in the system.)
  • A number of human characters kicked out of the Church for reasons of this exact trope still wear ecclesiastical garb, and not everybody they meet is aware they've been defrocked. Confusion regarding this plays into some of the early plot.
• The Rip-Off Church/Church of Violence in Black Lagoon are drug dealers and arms dealers who happen to be based in a church and dress like nuns. The nun, Eda, might be the most prominent example on the show, being a foul-mouthed Hard-Drinking Party Girl who's always looking to make some quick cash and talks about trying to get into Rock's pants if Revy doesn't. As revealed in later arcs, she's actually a CIA agent posing as a nun and The Man Behind the Man for one of the major crime lords in the city.
• Sort of invoked with one half of the Iscariot Organization team in Hellsing - a nun with a violent, sword-wielding split personality. Technically her partner Heinkel probably should be a nun as well, but instead she crossdresses as a priest.
  • Father Alexander Anderson from the same is played with a bit more; while he's also a member of the Iscariot Organization (and a male, so a priest rather than a nun), he reserves his bayonets pulled from nowhere for vampires only, along with his Slasher Smile and Scary Shiny Glasses. In his off-hours he runs an orphanage where he is truly beloved, and gets into a slight disagreement when his superior decides to cut down innocent people along with vampires; he might not LIKE Protestant England, but he's not a mass murderer.
• Miroku in Inuyasha is an itinerant Buddhist monk who is very good at fighting youkai, but terrible at being a Buddhist, between his incessant skirt-chasing and his habit of conning his way into money and comfortable lodgings whenever possible. This is reasonably historically accurate, given that many monks of the time were incessantly criticized by laymen, both commoners and authorities alike, for doing exactly these things. It was said that there were no worse Buddhists in medieval Japan than among the clergy. Miroku himself manages to stay among the more benevolent examples of the trope and proves to be capable of deep spirituality when the situation is serious... but he's still a terrible Buddhist.
• Sister Angela from One Pound Gospel. A mild example, since her only serious indiscretion is her relationship with Kosaku.
• Esther Blanchett from Trinity Blood: not only is it suggested she is in love with both Father Nightroad and Count Ion, at a couple points in the story she's also on the run for murder charges.
  • Esther isn't the only nun indicated to be in love with Father Nightroad; Sister Noélle Bor openly admits it to him. Abel gently rejects her, but seems to find nothing inappropriate about the idea. Given that the current Pope is openly acknowledged to be the son of the previous Pope, it seems that in the distant future of Trinity Blood, the Catholic Church has dropped the requirement of celibacy.
  • The manga also has Sister Monica Argento, who despite being a nun crossdresses as a priest, and who greatly enjoys killing. And she's one of the good guys! (More or less.)
• What Miyu, Alyssa, and Nao become at the end of My-HiME. Nao in particular used to pose as a child prostitute and rob her clients with the help of her Child.
  • Yukariko herself is also one, as despite her innocence and lack of knowledge about men, she gets visibly drunk during the Karaoke party, and also gets into a relationship with Ishigami, becoming pregnant in the process (although this may have been due to rape). At least in her case she has apparently stopped being a nun at the end of the series, though she still works at the church, and is even shown to chew out the girls for acting so immoral in a house of God.
• Zange in Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens, daughter of a priest, dresses as a nun, but with a miniskirt.
• The trope description fits Rosette Christopher from Chrono Crusade to a T. She constantly swears, physically takes her frustration out on her assistant Chrono (who's a demon, by the way) when things go wrong, enjoys gambling, revels in wearing expensive clothing, in one scene gets rip-roaring drunk and then forces a twelve-year-old to drink - during Prohibition, Drives Like Crazy, and... happens to be one of the best exorcists in the Magdalene Order, when she manages not to destroy anything. The Order puts up with her behavior because not only is she very good and very dedicated to what she does, she has an extremely good reason for being there—saving her younger brother from a powerful demon.
  • Note that Rosette does not have a religious vocation, never claimed to have a religious vocation, only joined up for the training and resources she needed in order to save her brother, and left the Magdalene Order shortly after doing so.
• Sister from Arakawa Under the Bridge, a large-framed, crossdressing man who holds Mass at gunpoint and claims to be a Living Lie Detector, making confessions more like interrogations. He's also almost definitely not an actual holy-person of any religion either - as he seems to think God is Big Boss and his "Bible" is filled with a variety of misquotes from everything to Christian to Buddhist texts. But when you get used to his more frightening habits, it's clear Sister genuinely cares for his community, acting as a source of advice and as a protector for the cast. He also takes care of orphans and feeds the community home-baked cookies.
• Sister Sein in Lyrical Nanoha. Getting trained as a nun for a few years under the strict supervision of Sister Schach had done nothing to reduce her mischievous personality. For example, her first appearance on ViVid involved surprise Skinship Grope and secretly touching everyone's no-no places while they were relaxing in the hot springs (including Vivio).
  Teana: Sexual harassment is a criminal offense, you know.
  • It is, however, indicated that, immature tendencies aside, she's a caring individual who's good at her job. In StrikerS Sound Stage X, she notices when an elderly pilgrim is about to collapse and carries her the rest of the way, and she is often seen caring for the comatose Ixpellia.
  • Chantez fights by using a lot of dirty tricks. Heck, she even tells a bald-faced lie to the clone of her Church's figure of worship to set up a surprise attack. That said, she entered the Intermiddle Championship to inspire other girls to join the Saint Church as a way of paying back the kindness that Sister Schach showed her when she was a Street Urchin.
• Mother Carmel from One Piece is introduced as a saintly nun who ran an Orphanage of Love, but she's actually a slave trader. The orphanage was a front, and she'd occasionally sell off kids she raised.
• Nicholas D. Wolfwood of Trigun is a male example. He claims to be a travelling Christian priest, yet he drinks, smokes, sells confessional sessions for money, kills both for profit and for expediency, and is the member of a Church Militant in the manga and functionally a Knives priest-in-training in the anime. In the anime, he even admits he's never actually been inside a church before when he stumbles into one to make his last confessions and die.
• Genjyo Sanzo of Saiyuki. A Buddhist priest known for his heavy smoking, easy irritability and general disinterest in giving sermons whenever possible. Also notorious among Youkai for being a killer marksman.
• A Certain Magical Index takes this in stride.
  • Index is no wallflower, may be a glutton, but she doesn't swear and has decent manners when she isn't biting Touma's head. She also apparently didn't have any underwear prior to meeting Touma. And a number of times afterwards.
  • The Roman Catholic's ranks seem to subside on nuns with weapons and criminally short skirts (especially Agnese, and especially her Stripperiffic Restraining Bolt during her second appearance). They're also dangerously zealous and pay no heed to the cardinal rule thou shall not kill, even though it's eventually shown that their initial schemes to convert Academy City seem to try and Take a Third Option to killing.
    • However, this is heavily averted with Orsola Aquinas. She's so incredibly kind and devout that she even forgives and helps those who only a few weeks ago attempted to murder her.
  • The Amakusa are unique in that they seem to be a variant of Kirisuto-kyō. The whole sect tends to be portrayed more as noble Ninja than a religious denomination, though the portrayal has its reasons. They also have their own Saint. Who frequently kicks ass and almost always dresses in Stripperiffic street clothes herself. She also gets away with fighting one of the highest Angels, in part because of her powers as a Saint, but also uses the justification that Japanese tradition holds that you can successfully fight ''kami''.
• Double subverted in Hayate the Combat Butler with Sister Freesia. At first, it seems that she lives up to this, being stingy, greedy, and showing hints of a Yandere nature. Subverted when it's revealed that the character first introduced as Sister Freesia, Sonia, is an impostor. Double subverted when it's revealed that the real Sister Freesia doesn't act mature at all and obsesses over boy bands. Played straight by the priest, a noted lech and obsessed with role-playing games.
• Played straight with Kazumi Ryudo from Haunted Junction, who is something of a Lovable Sex Maniac. He's also a Buddhist monk trained by his grandfather, and said grandpa is a Dirty Old Man.
  • Also with Mutsuki Asahina, a Shinto Miko who is rather... interested in younger boys.
• The Soldat nuns in Noir serve as Elite Mooks for the organization, which already has a fairly impressive army of assassins at its back, and put up a surprisingly valiant fight against the title duo, with one even coming at the pair with a broadsword.
• Misora Kasuga from Negima! Magister Negi Magi also counts as this. Despite working as a Church Militant for Mahora, she prefers using her Sprint Shoes to escape rather than for assistance. And that's not even counting her mischievous deeds, including posing as a priest inside a confessional.
• Seira Mimori from Kaitou Saint Tail has stolen (once), lied (repeatly), violated confessional secrets (on average once every chapter), manipulated Meimi into becoming the titular thief, and is fully aware she's not supposed to do any of it. Her saving grace are that said thief is Just Like Robin Hood and only steals already stolen things to give them back to the legitimate owners (and both justify their actions with having to do it for justice: none of them actually likes stealing), and once Saint Tail retires she stops doing most of that (although the Distant Epilogue implies she still violates the confessional secret to send former Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist to unmask thieves and scammers).
• Former Lady of War Galatea in Claymore surely seems to enjoy a drinking competition with former comrades (and win easily), she has a personal BFS which she hides under her bed, doesn't personally adhere to the beliefs of her church and also shows some Naughty Nun traits when she's fighting the Awakened one in the city of Rabona (Nun clothes aren't meant for combat, after all...). Overall this trope is downplayed though, Galatea became a nun to hide from those who were hunting her down, under normal circumstances she acts politely and is particularly beloved by the orphans of Rabona.
• Female Knight from Goblin Slayer. Despite being a Paladin, she sure doesn't act like it. Hedonistic, rude, belittling, and kind of a general jerk. This eventually comes back to bite her when her patron deity gets fed up with her behavior, and ceases granting her miracles.
• Randy of Blue Ramun is a priest-healer who oversees the various religious ceremonies, weddings, and funerals in the Lezak District, but his behavior more closely resembles that of a bum than a man of the cloth. He smokes excessively, drinks at all hours of the day, and sleeps through his personal prayers. He'll be the first to point out that he's broken nearly enough rules to get kicked out of the priesthood, but his congregation love and trust him nevertheless. They still remember his work as Captain of the Lezak Guard, a position which he resigned for priesthood after he failed to stop the district's Blue Doctor from performing deadly medical research on his subordinate Eagle's wife. Even with the façade of a lazy, carefree slacker, everyone can tell he's got the best interest of the community in mind and that he's willing to lay down his life to protect them if need be.
• Sister Ivry from EDENS ZERO is basically a nun in name and appearance only. She may be the ship's healer, but she's also quite the sadist. She makes frequent reference to using her healing abilities to keep victims of her torture sessions from getting too badly hurt or damaged.

Comic Books

• Played with in the European comic book series Soda. One book has a (male) small-time criminal who dresses up as a nun for disguise. Of course, Soda himself is a rare male example (and subversion), since he dresses up as a priest to fool his old mother into thinking he is one and not a gun-toting cop.
• Bad Girl icon "Shotgun" Mary Delacroix from Warrior Nun Areala: Give her 20 "Hail Marys" or she'll chop your head off.
• The Ghost Rider arc "Heaven's On Fire" introduced a legion of Gun Nuns. Yes, that's the actual name of their order. Previously we'd also seen a deadly order of martial artist nuns. That said, they aren't actually bad, they just go to necessary extremes. The Gun Nuns protect the portal to Hell, after all.
• Soeur Marie-Thérèse des Batignolles◊ (portrayed above^note in French, "shit" is slang for marijuana): drinks, fights ◊, swears, smokes dope, hates kids, reads porno magazines, hits below the belt and completely disrespects her hierarchy. But then, she is also good friends with the pope. And when she dies, neither God nor Satan want anything to do with her.
• The Solicitines in Castle Waiting are an unusually serious and sympathetic example. They're genuinely religious and caring of other people, but they have absolutely no problem with helping women permanently escape from abusive husbands (to the point of implied murder if necessary), are happy for members to flirt with men and even leave if they meet a guy who seems worth it, and make most of their money from distributing massively alcoholic desserts.
• The Italian comic book Suore Ninja (literally "Ninja Nuns") has as protagonists three ninja nuns who are implied to regularly compete for the higher body count whenever they're sicked at some threat to the Holy Church.
• The Mighty Thor: One issue shows a nun becoming smitten by Thor's rugged physique, and another nun has to remind her of who she is.
  Sister Marjorie: Perhaps the... God of Thunder... would like to stay for dinner?
  Nun: Remember your vows, Sister Marjorie.
  Sister Marjorie: Yes. And what were those again?
• In Runaways, one of the members of the Upward Path is Black Maria, a nun with some sort of touch-related powers.
• Sister Miller fought alongside Grimjack in the Demon Wars and created the powerful anti-demon Miller Medallions.

Fan Works

• Alya and the Harem Reality: The new timeline has the hero Saint Scimmia, the wielder of the Monkey Miraculous that looks and acts like a nun, albeit fighting with a staff and sabotaging an Akuma's powers with her Uproar. The catch? She is the timeline's version of Lila Rossi, with all that entails.
• Lily from The Night Unfurls is a rare case where the elements of this trope are inverted as many ways as possible. Rather than being "impure" out of her own will like many examples, she is deemed tainted by the Archbishop due to trauma. Rather than continuing her job, she leaves the clergy two chapters later to train under Kyril Sutherland as a squire after her introduction, making her a former nun. In spite of all of this, the redhead notably looks and acts like a nun, as evidenced by her white vestments, her distaste towards "dirty" things (e.g., swearing and alcohol), and her decent, sincere personality. Lily upholds the moral standards of her Noble Profession while The Church decays, even after her development into a Good Is Not Soft Nay-Theist.
• Nao in the My-HiME fanfic The Sword of the Lord. She swears quite often (in and out of her narration), likes to drink and occasionally has contact with men. Yukariko is still a nun despite being married, which Nao suspects is only allowed because she got an exemption in exchange for keeping quiet about Joseph's infiltration, forced a bishop to submit or used St. Vlas' powers to convince people it was allowd. It's suggested that the order as a whole loosely follows the rules, being more focused on dealing with supernatural threats.
• In A.A. Pessimal's take on the Discworld, the Chaplain to the Thieves' Guild School is a cheerful motherly nun, beloved by her pupils, kind, loving and supporting. Who was on the run for embezzling large amounts of money from her Order, which she maintains was "resting" in her bank account. Her motto for reverend contemplation is The Gods help those who help themselves. This is believed to be based on a real case where a cheerful Irish nun, headmistress of a convent school, bankrupted the school by persistent and well-concealed theft estimated at a million pounds over ten years.
  • Meanwhile at the Convent School of The Spiteful Sisterhood of Seven-Handed Sek, a girls' school in Ankh-Morpork, the music teacher, Sister Maria, has a fondness for juniper-scented refreshment, which makes her singing lessons interesting. Shauna O'Hennigan, a lively pupil, tends to sing her own words...
  Brown paper bottles all tied up with string, these are a few of my favourite things!

Films — Live-Action

• The title character of Luis Buñuel's Viridiana is a novitiate-nun who tries to be Mother Theresa, but is secretly Prideful of her Good Works. She's really more misinformed and naive than 'bad', but she screws it up magnificently nevertheless.
• The Sound of Music
  • Sister Maria becomes frightened of becoming this trope when she discovers she has feelings for Captain Von Trapp, and runs back to the Abbey in a panic. The Reverend Mother reassures her that there is nothing immoral about loving a person ("The love between a man and a woman is holy too"), especially since Maria hadn't yet taken her vows and therefore wasn't officially a nun. She instead encourages Maria to follow her own path in life, which does not necessarily lead to being a nun.
    
    The real Maria averted this as she was the classic stereotype of the stern, sour-faced, ruler wielding nun. It was the father, Georg von Trapp, who was carefree, letting his children get away with murder, until Maria disciplined them. Though she also said that the part about her being ill-suited for the Abbey was accurate. When asked if she was that troublesome in real life, she replied, "I was worse!"
  • Worth mentioning, although it was done in the name of heroism: In the movie only, when the Von Trapp family is on the run from the Nazis in the Abbey, a group of sisters come to the Reverend Mother and cross themselves, intoning "Bless us mother, for we have sinned." Then from under their habits they pull the car parts they stole from the soldier's cars.
• A similar example appears on Saving Silverman, as the nuns have a very well-stocked fitness center on their grounds, and are perfectly understanding when Sandy expresses her desire to leave... to her face.
  Mother Superior: Damn! Lost another one.
  Nun: Son of a bitch!
• The Second Is A Christian is a Japanese martial arts film where the heroine (played by Sue Shiomi) is a Christian Nun fighting a Yakuza takeover who's threatening her church.
• Delores from Sister Act. Justified in that she's really a lounge singer and witness in a high profile court case who was sent to the convent by the authorities to protect her. Subverted in that if it weren't for her party girl side, she'd have made a very good nun.
• Sara in Two Mules for Sister Sara.
  • Subverted in that Sister Sara is a prostitute merely posing as a nun to avoid being killed.
• Spy Hard has gun-toting nuns.
• In Nun of That, the Order of the Black Habit are nun assassins. The lead character, Sister Wrath, was chosen for the order specifically because she beat up a nun who was trying to have sex with her and a priest who was having sex in the confessional on separate occasions.
• Mother Superior in Silent Night, Deadly Night is, for all intents and purposes, a nun. She's even as holy as a nun (and even behaves like one) for the most part. However, she's rather abusive towards Billy, and she even does something that can only be described as torturing him in his sleep at one point. She does not (or, more accurately, refuses to) understand what that one night on the road did to him. This does not help Billy's mental state one bit, and even contributes to his becoming the most infamous Slasher Santa the screen has ever seen. Of course, she truly believes she's doing the right thing for the whole film, so she's more of a Well-Intentioned Extremist than anything.
• A male example with Rev. Henley in Hell's Hinges (1916). He only became a pastor because his mom wanted him to. When he goes to the Wild West town of Hell's Hinges, he's seduced into drinking and debauchery, and winds up joining the mob of toughs to burn down his own church.
• Mother Marie Claire in Novitiate is, to put it bluntly, insane. She runs the contemplative order of the Blessed Rose like a Cult, screams at the novices instead of guiding them, and takes her own crisis of faith out on them by turning ordinary confession sessions into BDSM scening. Yikes!!!
• The Little Hours is all about this trope. The nuns in this movie swear, have sex, are rude, even violent, and even participate in a magic ritual in the woods at one point. And it's hillarious.
• Problem Child: The nuns in the orphanage where Junior grows seem to have it in for him, so it's no surprise that he retaliates in kind. Heck, they even resort to underhanded tactics to trick the Healeys into adopting Junior just to get rid of them. Then again, it's a World of Jerkass so...
• Idle Hands: Druidic priestess Debi is introduced as a mild mannered nun figure. Near the end of her introductory scene however, she removes her religious clothes to reveal tomboyish and skimpy clothes underneath and starts swearing. From that point on she is portrayed as a badass fighter with a serious, no nonsense attitude and a foul mouth out to stop evil. In the end, she is shown to have a lustful side to her as well, wanting to have sex with the young man who's been trying to get with her the whole film.
• Jacques Rivette's La religieuse (adaptation of a novel by Diderot) shows the hypocritical world of convents before The French Revolution. Nunneries are dumping grounds for un-marriagable noble daughters. Some of the nunneries are essentially high-class brothels.
• Killer Nun: Following surgery to excise a brain tumor, Sister Gertrude develops an addiction to painkillers and begins to act increasingly unhinged, culminating in her becoming an accessory to murder.

Folklore

• Male example. Ji Gong is a monk infamous for his unorthodox behavior. He openly eats meat and drinks wine, and dresses in filthy, ragged robes. Nonetheless, he's firmly on the side of good, helps the downtrodden and fights injustice. Eventually his monastery kicks him out and forces him to walk the earth, but his reputation as a folk hero remains.

Jokes

• A couple of nuns go into the city to buy some groceries for their convent. But they aren't very experienced drivers and soon they get lost and run out of gas in a bad part of town. A local gang sees their expensive car, and the leader comes over and leans on the hood and sticks a gun in Sister Mary's face. She says "Sister Agatha, what should I do?," and Sister Agatha says "Show him your cross," and Sister Mary says, "Get off my fucking car!"
• A priest is walking through downtown when a prostitute tells him "For thirty bucks, I'll give you a blowjob." The priest had never heard of blowjobs before, so he returns to the church trying to think of what it could be. Finally, he sees a nun and decided to ask her. "Sister, what is a blowjob?" he asked. "Thirty bucks, same as downtown," she replied.
• An Irish man is walking towards his favorite pub when he spots a nun known for her chastising of sinners, near the door collecting for the poor. The man tries to sneak by, but the sister calls him out for being on his way to "drink his disgusting whiskey." The man stops short, defensive. "Aye, and how do ye know it's so disgusting? Have you ever tried some?" The nun confesses that no, she has not, and in the interest of knowing good from evil, she's willing to try a wee dram of it. "However, I can't have word of me drinking any of that stuff getting back to the parishioners, so I'll let you bring some out to me, but bring it in a teacup." The man agrees, and walks into the pub, approaching the barman and asking for a pint of lager, and a dram of whiskey in a teacup. The barman promptly turns a shade of red and asks, "Is that bloody nun out there again?!?"
• A bus full of nuns falls off a cliff and they all die. They arrive at the gates of heaven and meet St. Peter, who tells them to get in a line as he must ask all of them a question. He turns to the first on and says "Have you ever touched a penis?" She admits that she touched one with her finger once. St. Peter says "Dip your finger in this holy water and you may enter." He turns to the next nun and asks her the same question; she admits that she held a penis in her hand once. He instructs her to stick her hand in the holy water and she can enter. At this point there is a commotion; one of the nuns is trying to cut in line! St. Peter asks "Sister, what is the meaning of this?!" The nun replies "Well, if I'm going to have to gargle this stuff, I'd rather do it before Sister Mary has to stick her ass in it!"

Literature

• Christopher Moore's Fool:
  • A woman supposedly so dedicated to asceticism she is locked up in solitary in a convent turns out to have an extremely inventive mind when it comes to sex with one of the altar boys, despite the fact that her only access to the outside world is a small cross-shaped window...
  • The nuns appear to be having sex, at least with each other, and have a definite interest in male anatomy. But they still have something to lose and so care about maintaining appearances.
• The Sister of Battle trainer in Cain's Last Stand is a loyal and pious soldier of His Divine Majesty's church - and also drinks and plays cards with the navy, infantry, and Commissariat trainers in her down time. She is also having an affair with the head administrator - Amberley mentions in a footnote that not all Sororitas orders impose a vow of celibacy.
• In Simon R. Green's Nightside books, there's the "Salvation Army Sisterhood". A sisterhood of nuns militant, who enforce what they believe are God's laws with body armor and automatic weapons. Similarly, we often hear about the "Little Sisters of the Immaculate Chainsaw".
• Mother Mary Bellarmine in Jane Haddam's Murder Superior fits this trope.
• Father Lavingy in Agatha Christie's Murder in Mesopotamia's behavior isn't quite right for a priest; most of the party being Protestants, they don't catch it, but the Catholic Poirot does. Turns out he's a thief masquerading as a priest.
• In The Three Musketeers, Milady once was a nun. She obviously didn't take it seriously.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Tyene Sand is in training to be a septa, and puts on a show of being sweet and pious — being blonde, blue-eyed and beautiful doesn't hurt. However, she's also a Master Poisoner and just as bloodthirsty and deadly as any of her Badass Family.
  • Septa Lemore, whom Tyrion refers to as the "soiled septa". She's very casual about nudity in front of him, and he notes that the stretch marks on her belly imply that she either hasn't always been a septa or hasn't taken her vows of chastity seriously.
• A mild example, in The Long Earth, Joshua has noted that the nuns who run the orphanage aren't much like nuns on TV. The main one we see is Sister Agnes, a Badass Biker who plays Jim Steinman too loudly for the other nuns' liking. There's also Sister Serendipity, who has joined holy orders until the FBI stop looking for her (Sister Agnes says it was all a misunderstanding, and it's not like she succeeded in shooting the senator).
• Lauren Groff's Matrix is set in an medieval abbey, and features a wide range of behavior over the story's timeline. While some of the nuns do engage in sexual relationships with fellow sisters, blatant religious heresy is the bigger scandal and incredibly dangerous for the entire community.
  • Notably, while lesbian sex and relationships may be a semi-open secret in the abbey, heterosexual intercourse is still absolutely forbidden, and a nun who falls pregnant receives severe punishment.
  • As mentioned in the trope description, many (if not most) of the sisters end up at the abbey not out of a calling, but simply because they were unmarriageable. However, the story still takes faith seriously, and the religious visions of the protagonist form a major plot element.
• Kitsune Sura of Spirit Hunters drinks a lot, makes dirty jokes, gambles, eats tons of meat, and streaks in public, surprising many who hear that she's a priestess. Her standard response is that she's a Taoist, not a Buddhist like most of them are used to. Though in real life one of the two major schools of Daoshi has similar requirements as Buddhist monks, the other doesn't.
• In Sammy Keyes and the Sisters of Mercy, Sammy's church is visited by some very free-spirited nuns (the titular Sisters of Mercy) who are very kind and devoted but also enjoy playing jaunty music on the organ during Mass and dancing in outfits made of purple feathers. Sammy considers them unusual but loves having them around. It then turns out that they use their act as a way to stick around churches long enough to steal anything of value, which makes it possible that they were only posing as nuns.
• In Rangers At Roadsend Chip, who spent some time at the temple because her parents wanted her to become a Sister, reveals that the Sisters are not particularly humble or forgiving, or even chaste. While the religion is not Christianity, the Sisterhood seems to have similar requirements. Considering that many of the other Sisters are probably also there because their parents wanted it so, the reasons for the lack of holiness are probably the same as in the Middle Ages.
• Trash of the Count's Family has two examples. Cage is a priestess of the God of Death who also fights, flirts, and carries around glasses to drink alcohol with at every opportunity. The "Holy Maiden" of the Sun God, Hannah, was secretly brought up by the church to be a Church Militant swordsman and lacks the holy powers that the church claims she possesses.
• In The Rise of Kyoshi, Kyoshi's Missing Mom Jesa was an Air Nomad nun who got roped into an Earth Kingdom bandit's scheme, then ran off with him and became a well-known outlaw herself. In contrast, every other Air Nomad character hews closer to their culture's "wise Warrior Monk" ideal.

Live-Action TV

• Desmond on Lost became a monk after receiving a sign from God, but was kicked out for drinking the wine made at the monastery and it being clear that it wasn't where he belonged.
• Pushing Daisies had a plot in the second season where Olive became a nun to avoid the stress from all the secrets people entrusted her with. Olive herself wasn't that great of a nun (trying desperately to take back her stuff from the poor when it was donated), and at least one other nun like this was featured in an episode.
• In one episode of Leverage, Parker dresses as a nun. The audience knew that she wasn't, but it was still an amusing scene. Especially when she pulls up her skirt to reach lockpicks attached to her leg and uses a fake bible to take an imprint of a key and make a plastic duplicate. (Earlier she was mistaken for an angel while stealing a statue)
  • Also Sister Lupe in "The Boys Night Out Job", who Nate's friend Jack met and had feelings for. Nate kept stressing "She's not a nun". She pulled a gun on him when thinking he had a hand in stopping Jack of delivering cancer drugs, and he, Elliot, and Hardison work together to take down two drug lords after them.
• Sybil on Camelot is manipulative, cunning, and delves into pagan magic more than once, up to and including "sacrificing" girls studying at her Convent (whether they died as a result is left unclear) to keep spiritual forces at bay.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus had "Attila the Nun", who took a vow of eternal brutality.
• In one episode of Robin Hood, an 'Abbess' turns up at Nottingham Castle. Her bearing and behavior are not quite right—it turns out she was a thief planning to steal the tax money being stored in the chapel.
• American Horror Story: Asylum has Sister Jude and Sister Mary Eunice, who are both deconstructed.
  • Sister Jude is vindictive, cruel to several of the patients at Briarcliff, and is clearly infatuated with Monsignor Howard, and gets the heroine Lana committed to keep her from exposing the inhumane treatments of the asylum. When Jude goes through a massive Break the Haughty routine as well as some light shed on her own past, she is revealed to have some Hidden Depths.
  • Sister Mary Eunice starts off as a genuinely sweet girl who is way in over her head and only wants to get Sister Jude's approval. When she's possessed by the Devil himself, she plays this straight, though it's revealed she's been Fighting from the Inside, and once she's able to regain control of herself for a brief moment, she begs Monsignor Howard to kill her and stop the Devil.
• Blackadder:
  • Prince Edmund in The Black Adder episode "The Archbishop", when he becomes Archbishop despite not believing in God, because King Richard wants him to discourage the pentient from leaving their money to the church. There's also several gags about Naughty Nuns.
  Edmund: Selling the sexual favours of nuns? You mean some people actually pay?
  Baldrick: You know, foreign businessmen, other nuns...
  • The Baby-Eating Bishop of Bath and Wells in Blackadder II, who eats babies, is a colossal pervert that likes to play 'Nuns and Novices' with the prostitutes, and thinks nothing of doing an Ass Shove with a hot poker if one's debts to him aren't paid. And yet the Queen and his congregation have no idea, thinking his worst crime is a love of wine. Blackadder blackmails him into absolving his debt by putting him in a compromising position (with Percy as the prostitute), having it painted, and threatening to release the painting to the public. The Bishop asks if Blackadder's ever considered a career in the church.
• The Brokenwood Mysteries: Zig-zagged by the nuns at the local nunnery. They conceal addictions (alcohol, weed, gaming), but fundraise to support the children of a remote island out of genuine care for their well-being and education. However, the money for this effort is raised through being the local suppliers of weed and gummy edibles.
• The candid-camera style show Just For Laugh Gags got a lot of comedy mileage out of pranks involving nuns being naughty.
• In Jack Taylor, there was a nun who worked at St. Monica's Magdalene laundry in 1960s Galway who took extreme pleasure in terrorising her charges, referred to only as "Lucifer" in a diary account. At one point, the diary author's best friend is leaving the institution to get married, and then Lucifer stops by to wish her well when she spots a pack of cigarettes in the friend's luggage. Lucifer tells them how lucky they weren't caught a week ago, or they would have been punished severely for possession of tobacco, only to light one up in front of the two and then offer a cigarette to the lucky bride-to-be.
• Subverted in Midsomer Murders - while there is an episode that centered on a convent of nuns, they took their religious vows very seriously. It's just that political infighting (which is impressive since there's only four of them), lack of funds for maintaining the building, stolen antiquities and the Prioress blackmailing a war criminal who later kills two people makes everyone outside the Priory very suspicious of them.
• Virtually every priest or nun in Father Ted, definitely including the protagonists. Father Ted is a gambling-addicted embezzler, Father Jack is a foul-mouthed, violent, alcoholic womanizer, and Father Dougal openly mocks the teachings of the church, though he may not mean to, as he is a Manchild who can be distracted by tossing candy across the room.
• A staple of the candid-camera prank show Just for Laughs Gags involves nuns, usually doing something naughty or sexual. The joke is helped along by the fact that the show is shot in Quebec, which has a large number of actual nuns.
• In Dracula (2020), Harker notes that Sister Agatha doesn't act like how you'd expect a nun would act. She's razor-tongued (though not unkind) and frank about her lack of faith in God. Although, ironically, she later says that Harker's horrifying accounts of Count Dracula have restored her faith. Her personality remains the same, however.
• Sister Michael of Derry Girls. A very apathetic, judo practicing, pop heartthrob loving excuse for a nun. She herself admits she only really joined the nunnery cause it came with free accommodations.
• Sister Harriet of Hunters, a foul-mouthed, Guns Akimbo, quite-possibly-Double Agent Bendictine^note judging from the habit who once set a man's groin on fire with a handheld torch.
• Suor Nausicaa, interpreted by the Italian comedian Paolo Casiraghi, drives a motocross bike and has absolutely no problems slapping people.
• The Golden Girls: A woman posing as a nun assists a man in scamming Blanche and Sophia at a local shopping mall. This trope is directly evidenced when the nun is seen lighting a cigarette and smoking it.
  • As part of Sophia's elaborate plot in the episode "My Brother, My Father," Blanche and Rose, dressed in nuns' habits after rehearsals for The Sound of Music, end up having to pretend they really are nuns. Blanche doesn't quite pull that off...
    Blanche: [carrying her normal clothes in her arms] We're here collecting, uh, lingerie... for needy sexy people.
  • In another, Sophia, after a friend of hers who was a nun passes away, decides impulsively to join a convent. Sophia being Sophia, she fails horribly at it, getting the other nuns to gamble at cards (and cheating,) suggesting a "Monks of the Midwest" beefcake calendar to raise money, and hiding a picture of some young stud behind her photo of the Pope. Her Mother Superior gets in on it as well; when Sophia tries to butter her up, she quickly shuts her down with, "Save it, Sister Suck-up!"

Manhua

• Bloodline: The Last Royal Vampire has the Shengdi nuns, who are elite combat warriors of the Church Militant organization. Some are mild while other can be more Knight Templar, not caring who is in the way of their missions.

Music

• The Jake Thackray song Sister Josephine is about a criminal on the run and disguised as a nun. His co-nuns are quite oblivious to the fact; Hilarity Ensues.
• The Vocaloid song God Of Marie is about stoner nuns throwing parties and smoking marijuana.
• Another Vocaloid song, Sister’s ∞ mercY, is about a nun who comes to a small town offering tea that grants wishes. Eventually, the townspeople get too greedy and she decides to drown them all. Bad enough, but the PV for the companion song Vampire's ∞ pathoS reveals that she is also a vampire, and the tea is actually the blood of her previous victims.

Tabletop Games

• In Dungeons & Dragons, the Gray Guards are Paladins who have been sanctioned by their church to do what's necessary to stop evil. Even if it means torture and assassination. They still lose their Paladin powers for breaking their vow, but unlike normal Paladins, they get to Atone without having to pay the XP cost. At max level, they get full confidence of the church, and don't even need to Atone anymore.
• The Tabletop RPG Macho Women With Guns supplement Renegade Nuns on Wheels.
• The board game Nuns on the Run has the players as mischievous young novice nuns, sneaking about the abbey at night trying to fulfill their "secret wish" while avoiding the patrolling Abbess and Prioress, who are controlled by other players.
• In Warhammer Fantasy battles Nagash used his position as head of church when he tried to conquer the world his first time.
• Exalted features Sulamore, one of the signature characters of the Infernal Exalted, who wears clothing approaching a nun's vestments, but a) she acts as a servitor of the will of the Yozis upon creation, and b) there's a reason that clothing is "approaching" a nun's vestments.
  • It is also saying something that Sulumor is one of the more conservatively dressed female characters in Exalted canon. Compare the Lady of Darkness in Bloodstained Robes, who is a high priestess of the Neverborn, the dead cousins of the Yozis, who wears... Well, the jury is still out on whether what she has constitutes wearing something.

Video Games

• There are two nuns in the Arcana Heart series. Elsa la Conti mostly averts this trope, despite being armed with a large cross and several other weapons (which could be excused as she works for an organization trained to deal with spiritual anomalies). On the other hand, her partner, Clarice di Lanza, is a full-blooded demon who acts rather immoral at times (though she usually means well), as well as having a major lesbian crush on Elsa.
• Arknights: Guard operator Specter is a nun that wields a massive chainsaw for a weapon and flips between a demure, quiet personality and deranged insanity. Later events revealed that she was captured and experimented on by the Church of the Deep which led to her madness, and they gave her the identity of a nun due to Oripathy causing memory loss among other mental issues.
• Body Blows: Lo Ray is a Buddhist monk example. While he is a member of a Shaolin Buddhist monastery, but his goal in competing in the Body Blows tournament is to gain fame and fortune.
• The Darkest Dungeon setting has the "pigs of St. Martha's", a group of sadistic nuns who ran an Orphanage of Fear, and who the Vestal suffered under when she was but a little girl. The Runaway, one of the heroes from Darkest Dungeon 2, is an escapee from that selfsame orphanage, who had to evade a particularly sadistic nun who took to branding her with a hot iron for minor offenses.
• Dragon Age: Origins gives us Leliana who used to be a nun before she joined your party. While she qualifies for this trope based on how unlike the nuns of her setting she is, there are several subversions here. The big one is she disagrees with Chantry dogma and believes the creator is a loving god instead of an indifferent one.
• Nun Massacre is this trope in video game form, where every nun is an undead demon out for your blood.
• In La Pucelle, Prier is rude, very violent (inside and outside her demon hunting job), steals on occasion from the Church, doesn't take prayer that seriously, and sometimes outright decides to go against their own Holy Scriptures. Everyone calls her out on that. In a hidden ending of the game, Prier can even become a Demon Overlord!
  • Prier appears as a Demon Overlord in the Disgaea games. Considering that there have been roughtly six games in that series(not counting spinoffs), She's been depicted as a demon more than she has been a nun, to the point that an Updated Re-release of La Pucelle included a second quest featuring Demon Overlord Prier. Indeed, it wasn't until Disgaea D2 that she even had an option to appear as her Human side.
  • Ironically enough, in La Pucelle, the goddess Poitreene SAYS she shouldn't be worshiped, she's just as "aspect" of Light in general.
• Skullgirls has Double, the demon who's true appearance is a morphing creature of Body Horror. Played with in that she is an agent of the Trinity
• The H-Game series Kango Shicyauzo features one nun who 'sometimes falls asleep when she is in bed with a boyfriend', a second who apparently fell in love with a priest and joined the sisterhood in order to stalk him, and a third who is the biological mother of one of her students...
• In the iPhone app and Xbox Indie game Twin Blades, we might excuse the heavy weapons she carts around as necessary for killing zombies. The revealing red dress and white stockings, though...
• Sister Teodora in Assassin's Creed II runs a bordello staffed by (former) nuns. She says she takes care of both the body and the soul.
• Mother Judgement from Newgrounds. The main screen sums it up as "Nun with guns".
• It's easier to list the monks and nuns who don't have some sort of scandal, secret, checkered past or glaring character flaw in ''Pentiment
• Mutatsu in Persona 3 is a cigar-smoking, hard-drinking, very bitter Buddhist monk. He's the game's Tower Social Link, and the protagonist meets him hanging out at a local club.
• in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, we have Danica Pure-Spring, the high priestess of Kynareth in Whiterun. She consoles Ahlam about the Jerkass proclivities of Ahlam's husband... not in being faithful to him, but agreeing with Ahlam's assessment that he's a jerkass and maybe that if the Stormcloaks attack the city then maybe he'll be killed.
• Bayonetta, the hypersexualized, sadistic titular protagonist enjoys doing the whole nun thing, and does graveyard burials and last rites dressed as one, most likely as both a cover story and a way to lure in her angelic enemies so that she can do her actual job of killing them to keep the demons of Inferno happy.
• Hitman: Absolution has the Saints, a squad of female assassins who dress up like nuns for reasons unclear, even to their boss.
• Nasuverse:
  • Fate/EXTRA CCC: Kiara Sessyoin wears a Western nun's habit with a slit up the side, and is referred to as a holy woman and a prophet. However, she's not Christian, she's a Buddhist. And for that matter, she belongs to a Buddhist sect widely considered heretical by most other Buddhists, that believed in reaching enlightenment through indulgence in sexual pleasure (one that actually existed, as it happens). As a result, she acts extremely sexually, and a lot of her magic has sexual overtones to it. She's also the True Final Boss, wherein she becomes the physical incarnation of human lust and attempts to "enlighten" all of humanity through a fatal, worldwide orgy.
  • Fate/Grand Order:
    • Kiara also appears as one of the Beasts threatening humanity, who among other things is responsible for driving one version of Shirou Emiya to life as an Alter. Unusually, she's also one of the few Beasts so far who can be summoned and used as a Servant, by way of the Alter Ego class. She swears to the protagonist that she will not pursue her old goals as part of the contract they made, but hints that she will relapse should they either die or fall into debauchery like her.
    • Played With for Saint Martha, a Christian Saint. On the outside, she's peaceful and serene, like a Saint should be, with the exception of her Navel-Deep Neckline outfit. At times, however, she demonstrates a much more combative, dirty-minded, and Hot-Blooded side. It's also heavily implied that the legend of her taming the Tarasque with her kindness and faith was something she made up after the fact, and she actually beat it into submission with her bare hands. She is genuinely faithful and goodnatured at heart, though.
    • Also Played With for Popess Johanna. She is gentle and kind-hearted to the point of being a Non-Action Guy on her debut in Traum, but her personality - cheerful, spunky and confrontational - is not something one would expect from a supposedly holy woman. And in history she was discovered when she gave birth in public, so a safe assumption can be made of her not upholding her vow of chastity.
• This applies to Lamretta of Granblue Fantasy: Flirtatious behavior? Check. Cleavage Window and Navel Window? Check. Bottle of wine by her side every waking moment? Did we mention she likes to drink? It's not certain if any of this is against her order though.
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance: This is Father Godwin in a nutshell. He is a notorious drunk who has been too hungover to hold Mass on repeated occasions, and has a mistress that he lives with as if she were his wife. However, he still has the respect of his community because (unlike many of his peers) he doesn't abuse his position for personal gain and refuses any luxuries that aren't available to his parishioners, and is a genuinely caring and kind man who does his level best to keep his people safe and ensure that any conflicts brought to his attention end without violence.
• From Touhou Project we have its main character, Reimu Hakurei. She's a miko who defers to gods and treats youkai as enemies, though she only acts like this because it's her job, and she doesn't really care about these things on a personal level. It's been mentioned by multiple characters that Reimu's attitude would be great for a Taoist hermit, but doesn't really fit a Shinto shrine maiden. Additionally, there are some gaps in Reimu's training- until Double Dealing Character, she didn't know that tsukumogami should be given prayers to becalm them, and more notably, she doesn't even know what god she's serving. It's fully possible that this is at least in part due to Yukari's influence.
  • Downplayed somewhat with Byakuren Hijiri. She fits into the role of a Buddhist nun well enough, sticking by vegetarianism and pacifist virtues for the most part, trying to help the resident youkai find a nonviolent way to persist through her faith, and even having a history of performing miracles. She also made herself immortal in order to preserve her youth through outright demonic methods, and rides a motorcycle of all things.
• Genshin Impact:
  • The "Chalk Prince and the Dragon" event for introduced Rosaria, a nun for the Church of Favonius. Unlike Barbara, Rosaria is cold, aloof, abrasive, and is not afraid to speak her mind when dealing with others. She’s the only one in Mondstadt who doesn’t trust either Albedo or the Traveler due to their status as Outlanders. She also wears some revealing clothing that really shows off her legs and her chest. She also drinks liquor in the Windblume Festival event and is described as a chain smoker in her character profile (even doing so on the rare occasions that she shows up to the Cathedral).
  • Inversion of Genesis introduces the Wanderer, described as a shugenja that certainly looks the part, but doesn't behave like one would expect. Something of a more complicated case, as he's an amnesiac Scaramouche and starts out behaving as one would expect even while rejecting the title of shugenja. Once his memories are restored, he regains his nasty personality but also becomes a servant of the God of Wisdom.
• Sarvente from Mid-Fight Masses (a Game Mod for Friday Night Funkin') may seem like a wholesome nun at first...but she's actually a demon who deliberately wears a self-made dollar store nun costume so she could have an easier time leading people to Heaven.
• Guilty Gear: Bridget wears a nun habit because she was raised by the church. But beyond this, she's a bounty hunter by trade and absolutely nothing about her religion ever gets brought up by the story, herself, or other characters. Her -STRIVE- redesign changes it to a hoodie.
• One of the main antagonists of Wick (2020) is an undead nun named Mara, who succumbed to despair over the plague and has seemingly aligned herself with the forces of evil. She constantly hunts Jean Wick, seeking to snuff out his light.

Webcomics

• Mary in Joseph & Yusra swears, fights, and is a professional sniper.
• Kill Six Billion Demons: Posthumous Character Kin Kiran was the abbess of her order until she was kicked out for taking bribes and generally abusing the power that came with her position. She later became a mercenary and founded her own style of martial arts.
• Go!Anna from Magellan invokes this with her civilian disguise, a nun's habit. Her true, brash personality slips out during a plane crash, earning her a lot of weird looks.
• In Sonichu, Angelica Rosechu may have been raised in a convent, but that doesn't stop her from masturbating (in churches, no less!).

Web Original

• In Noob, set in a part of the world where priests are supposed to be celibate, we first find out about Abraham's existence from the mouth of his son. Then we find out that he has another son, that he's actually a mafia don hiding from the police, that these two sons have different mothers and that he may have at least three more (hinted to have different mothers as well). Oh, and the son who spilled the beans? He's a silly Forgetful Jones and seems to have gotten it from Abraham.
• The Mastermind of the first session of Roulette Rampage, Etsuko Reiki, turns out to be this. She was originally a member of the Future Foundation, but she knew the rest of the cast (former Ultra Despair members) weren't making a lot of progress on their rehabilitation and the rest of the Foundation saw them as lost causes. Despite wanting to save them, she accomplishes this by throwing them back into their rehabilitation facility with no memories to see if they can rise above their despair-filled circumstances. It's implied that she actually does do work as a nun, since the prison has a church people regularly visit.

Western Animation

• Sister Butch from John Callahan's Quads!, oh where do we begin? Somewhat of a subversion since she is unhealthily devoted to the church, but at the same time she's a violent, aggressive beast with a Voice of the Legion when she gets angry and a somewhat pleasant working relationship with Satan.
• In Batman: Bad Blood, Batwoman and Nightwing, the latter of which has donned the cowl, end up getting flanked by nuns wielding M-60s and katanas. Nightwing calls them "Nunjas"
• The nun who runs Otto's Orphanage of Fear, in Time Squad.

Real Life

• As stated above, often Truth in Television during periods when the fate of The Un-Favourite or a younger son was often being forced into a career in the church.
• The first recorded instance of a Precision F-Strike being used in adjective form comes from a monk in 1528 who was making a copy of Cicero's De Officiis and scrawled "fuckin Abbott" in the margins.
• The "Nuns Having Fun" calendars are fairly mild cases, but the appeal comes largely from this trope. They ride roller coasters, dance around, go paddling in their habits, and smoke cigarettes, and it's all pretty giggle-worthy because they're nuns.
• A certain good-sized priest had a story about how he got the chance to attend a ceremony at the Vatican that was being led by the Pope. As soon as the Pope appeared, he claims that, in their zeal to reach the pontificate, a couple of little old Italian nuns knocked him out of the way as if they were pro linebackers.
• A British World War II Public Service Announcement film warned the public to be on the look out for Nazi paratroopers disguised as nuns. People were warned to look out for nuns with hairy forearms, adam's apples, and tattoos spelling out H.I.T.L.E.R.
• Averted with St Margret of Hungary, but played somewhat straight with the other nuns who don't like her too much for taking her role as a nun too seriously. According to the medieval hagiographies at least. One thing that is often overlooked or played down, is the fact she basically threw her father, the King, out of the monastery when he wanted to call her back for an arranged marriage, making her probably one of the most independent women remembered from her time. Not exactly what nuns are known for.
• Benedetta Carlini was a nun who used her position within the church to have sex with and even marry another nun.
• One of Julie d'Aubigny's more famous exploits involved a convent where the parents of her latest female lover had sent the girl after learning of their affair. To get inside Julie posed as a postulant, put the body of a recently deceased nun in a bed and set the room on fire to cover their escape. Ironically, in most tellings Julie ended up living her last years in a convert after another female lover of hers died, on whose death she was inconsolable. She died there at the age of only 33 (or 36, her exact date of birth is unclear. Even her ultimate fate is not entirely certain).
• The case of the nun, bursar at a college in upstate New York, who stole nearly a million dollars from her employers to fund her gambling habit. Sister Marie Thornton belonged to an Order set up "to raise consciousness about all forms of poverty.".
• Another gambling-addicted nun stole $128,000 from the churches where she worked in New York City. Sister Mary-Ann Rapp performed her thefts between 2006-10.
• An Irish nun, Sister Brigid McCabe, was headmistress of a church school in England. Over a ten year period she embezzled nearly a million pounds and brought the school to the brink of collapse.
• The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are an organization of Drag Queen nuns that do charity for the LGBT community. As you can imagine, they elevate sacrilege to an artform with their genderfuck drag that incorporates religious imagery. They got their start in San Francisco in the early 80's, advocating for queer people with AIDS whom the mainstream public wouldn't touch. Since then, they've spread across the United States and all over the world, using their out-there nun drag to draw attention to charitable causes. Despite their good works, the Catholic Church has placed them on the Papal List of Heretics, which the Sisters consider a point of pride.
• Mother Teresa is often remembered as a hard-working, tireless advocate for the poor, the sick, and the disenfranchised and was canonized as a saint. But later allegations revealed concerning the misuse of funds, poor medical treatments and religious evangelism. It was never about healing - it was always about converting people to Catholicism and getting people to accept a set of values, no matter how much harm they would cause. The British medical journal "The Lancet" published an account of Teresa's facilities in 1994 and were highly critical of “her rather dubious way of caring for the sick, her questionable political contacts, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her overly dogmatic views regarding, in particular, abortion, contraception, and divorce.”

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