Leeroy Jenkins



""Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.""

- Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 1711

You're playing your favorite MMORPG, First-Person Shooter or other online combat game. You and your team have come up with a workable strategy for how to tackle a challenging opponent. It will require organization and good timing, but you're sure it will work if you get everything set up in advance... wait, did KillerMonkeyz548 just open fire? Congratulations, your brilliant plan has just been ruined in one move by a Leeroy Jenkins.

The Leeroy Jenkins (or just Leeroy for short) is a specific type of Noob who has no patience for complicated plans, preferring to charge full-tilt into the fray and start attacking whatever's in front of him. Since this is a semi-viable strategy some of the time (depending on what game you're playing and the difficulty of the opposition), a Leeroy can remain undetected until the team hits the first real challenge, whereupon he gets everyone killed. Any attempts to point out that he had totally ignored the plan will be met with "plans are stupid" or similar. And he will never retreat.

On the plus side, a Leeroy can sometimes be detected before they cause calamity when you see them utter (or type) words to the effect of "Hey, watch this!" In groups with experienced players the phrase can be translated as "Immediately stop moving toward those enemies with very big guns and back out of Alpha Strike range because Sir Badassboi is about to do something incredibly stupid and attention-grabbing." Never attempt to save a Leeroy from the consequences of his mad charge; this will only encourage him, as well as provide repeated amusement -- he will often attempt the exact same thing again when he's revived. Should the group somehow miraculously pull through, don't expect him to wait for you to recover; he's already charging the next target.

If your leader doesn't wise up and punt him from the team after the first couple offenses, he can become a real-life gaming example of The Millstone, ruining any chance you have of completing your quest or mission successfully.

The trope is named after a World of Warcraft video that has been made famous around the net. For more information, see Leeroy Jenkins Video.

"Stop being such a Leeroy" has become multiplayer jargon in the time since, and it's sometimes used as a verb "to Leeroy" meaning to act in this way. Ironically, the original staged video can be seen as just a bit sympathetic towards Leeroy in that it also mocks and parodies excessive planning in parties. Considering that many of the actions taken in the video were part of the group's original plan, the implied overall point is that if you have Leeroy Jenkins in your party, you probably deserve him. Unless it's a Pick Up Group... in which case you know what you're going to get.

If an A.I. character that you need to keep alive does this, you have a classic example of a bad Escort Mission.

Some players also use "pulling a Leeroy" to refer to rushing in heedless of your own safety even when this is a viable tactic.

If, rather than being a Noob, the Leeroy is doing this purposefully to get a laugh out of disrupting the Serious Business that internet gaming has become, then he is a Griefer and should be kicked posthaste.

Compare The Real Man, Indy Ploy, and Strategy Schmategy. See also some Challenge Gamers. Not to be confused with avant-garde musician Leroy Jenkins or the sports columnist of the same name. For other similar character behaviors, see Reckless Sidekick, Unwitting Instigator of Doom, and Fearless Fool, as well as some incarnations of The Berserker. This type of character may have been inspired from living with a Martyrdom Culture, or trying to perform a Zerg Rush by yourself. Contrast We Need a Distraction.

Now available in Stupid Statement Dance Mix.

Anime & Manga
"Itachi: (to Sasori) The Nine-Tails is the one who screams and charges headfirst."
 * The title character of Naruto might as well be renamed Leeroy with the number of times he does this.
 * Naruto gets called out on this when he runs off after Yukimaru by himself in the Three-Tails arc, with Kakashi and Yamato reminding him of the impact his actions could have had on the mission, and Sakura punching Naruto into the ground so hard he makes a crater.
 * Naruto even gets the very description of a Leeroy Jenkins by Akatsuki.


 * However, he quickly learns to improvise in ways that take advantage of the enemy assuming this to be the case. Apparently, even better than having a plan is having a plan while the enemy thinks you're too stupid or cowardly to have a plan, or insanely reckless is Crazy Enough to Work.
 * In response to the Akatsuki threat, Naruto and Killer Bee were due to their Leeroy-ness making them easy capture.
 * Consequently and similar to the above, Kiba Inuzuka bears a similar trait in his tactics, despite what has been assumed learning to do otherwise. Sasuke Uchiha, as the series progresses, also falls into this habit as ambition overrides normal thought and he begins to rely more on inherent ability than actual skill or strategy.
 * Of course it's just luck to try this the one time it totally doesn't work out.
 * Hidan notes that when a target angers him enough, he goes berserk, forgets about the plan, and kills everyone in sight. For obvious reasons this usually works.
 * Shino follows Sasuke (who's pursuing Gaara in a Leeroy Jenkins move of his own, albeit in a loose interpretation of Genma's suggestion to make himself useful) in the Invasion of Konoha arc and ends up fighting Kankuro, whom he was disappointed to not be able to face in his official match.
 * Sasuke spent about two pages explaining the plan for fighting Killer Bee, and no one followed it. Not even him!
 * And then he got about twenty times worse when he rushed the freakin' Raikage, a giant of a man who's basically a ninja in a wrestler's body.
 * Recently,, only to be unable to go through with it and causing.
 * He's done it again as of Chapter 535 despite it
 * Kouji Kabuto from Mazinger Z is a mild case of this. In one hand, he never listens when someone tells him "Don't go", he is impulsive and hard-headed, falls into utterly DUMB, anybody-could-have-seen-it traps because he is too hasty and eager (a fact Kouji himself lampshades), and he is a determinator has troubles to understand when quitting to fight. On the other hand, he IS capable of listen and follow instructions and plans, he is a Genius Ditz is good devising strategies on the fly, he is capable of deceiving the enemy and he understands sometimes is necessary and even good being stealth (although he is not very good at it, but at least he makes the attempt) or making a tactical retreat. And he is capable of acknowledging his mistakes (once he was forced to retreat. He was angry, but after The Professor Yumi explained the situation to him, he admitted he was wrong and apologized). In a nutshell, he shows some traits of the trope, but he has not let they get him killed.
 * Rak from Tower of God. The test in question was designed so that one picked the right door. Koon is trying to work with what little clues they have been given, whereas Rak gathers that the scarcity of of clues was, so he kicked a random door down. This just proves how much of a fuck Rak doesn't give, since choosing the wrong door is penalized by death.
 * Haruhi Suzumiya: In the Deep-Immersion Gaming episode, Haruhi is exactly like this. Kyon manages to talk her out of it until the middle of the battle, though.
 * One Piece
 * Luffy has pulled this stunt at least once, as illustrated in this video. It also worked for him because he is easily the strongest member of the Straw Hats, and to his credit freestyle fights against the Big Bads rather well.
 * Sanji pulls a Leeroy Jenkins in the Water 7 arc, when he goes off on his own to look for Robin, knowing that she was not telling the truth about no longer wanting to be with the Straw Hats, and does it again when he decides to rescue her from the CP9 after boarding the Sea Train, despite Zoro warning him over the Den Den Mushi about the CP9's strength; he says that he would not obey any order given to hold back now that Robin needs to be saved. Incidentally, Luffy approved of this approach, and told Zoro he would have done the same thing as Sanji. And proceeded to do so as soon as they arrived at Enies Lobby.
 * Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
 * Every Ganmen pilot is one of these, and Leeron and Attenborough also display some characteristics of the trope ("HASHAAAAAAA"). But when you're in a universe where everything, especially physics, is subservient to the Rule of Cool, this is literally the best tactic.
 * Kamina was the most prevalent example of this trope, and the other characters tried to make it clear that this was a very bad idea. Sure, he inspired everyone, but if Simon wasn't there to level things out, Kamina would've been dead by the end of the second episode (a fact Kamina reiterates several times).   The rest of the Gunmen pilots are marginally more level-headed, but still incredibly bold.
 * He tried to fight a Humongous Mecha in the first episode. On foot. With a sword. How in the hell do you figure he survives that if left to his own devices? (According to Word of God, he would have won.)
 * Neon Genesis Evangelion
 * Asuka is a repeat offender. In her first episode, she jumps into battle with Gaghiel without equipment suitable for aquatic combat, although Misato takes her side anyway (circumstances forced her hand). In the next one, she tries to get the battle with Israfel over with early by slicing it in half, but it splits into twins and trounces both her and Shinji. Finally, several episodes later, she launches herself out to shoot down Arael, only to get Mind Raped instead.
 * Shinji also does this at one point, imprisoning him inside a 2-D Angel until Unit 01 goes nuts and rips itself out of its 3-D shadow.
 * Ash Ketchum from Pokémon is guilty of this. Despite having Pokémon to fight his battles for him, his solution to most problems upon first encountering them is to let out a Battle Cry and launch himself at them headfirst. This is especially true in the movies. For instance, he ran at Mewtwo and tried to punch him (twice) in the first movie, threw himself at the cage holding Moltres captive at the second, charged at Entei in the third, threw himself at the cage holding Latios in the fifth... and no matter how many times Ash tries to use Take Down, it always has no effect.
 * Bleach
 * Ichigo Kurosaki does it, but not for the sake of idiocy itself. When Orihime goes to Hueco Mundo, Ichigo is told by the Soul Society to stand by and for now consider her to be defecting, but at least they won't specifically mark her death for awhile. Being the Chaotic Good personified he is, Ichigo gleefully ignored that order and bum rushes to Hueco Mundo to save Orihime, accompanied with his friends (later Rukia and Renji follows). This screws up the Soul Society's former plan to get all the Captains together and sent Byakuya, Kenpachi, Unohana, Mayuri and their respective squads to Hueco Mundo, which enables Aizen to lock them there.
 * Aizen actually counted on Ichigo being chivalrous and overprotective of his True Companions to the point of stupidity. There's a reason why some fans refer to Aizen as "Captain Roulette".
 * Ichigo plays this trope straight early on in the story, while he and Uryu were facing down the first Menos Grande to appear in the story. Uryu tries to formulate a plan, while Ichigo simply charges in with the intent of cutting it down, despite the damn thing being twice the size of a skyscraper. He did have a plan, which was to try and chop the Menos apart piece by piece until its head was low enough to the ground that he could chop it. So it's less "no plan at all", and instead "there is a plan, but it's insanely stupid".
 * Then there's when Ichigo charges blindly at Ulquiorra, who he thought was the top Espada at the time, just because Ulquiorra said he brought Orihime to Hueco Mundo. It ended badly.
 * Maki Ichinose serves as a villainous Leeroy Jenkins in the Bount Arc, as he decides to fight Kenpachi and settle his grudge against him for killing the previous captain of Squad 11 rather than preventing Ichigo and the others from pursuing the Bounts into the Seireitei.
 * In the Hueco Mundo arc, Grimmjow winds up disrupting Aizen's plans by disobeying the order to stay in his chambers and going to save Orihime from two jealous Arrancar, having her heal Ichigo (whom Ulquiorra had left for dead), and sealing Ulquiorra away in another dimension, just so that he can fight Ichigo again.
 * Yammy arrives at Ichigo's fight with Ulquiorra, smashing through the floor like the Kool-Aid man, and kills Loly and Menoly on a whim, thus releasing Orihime. He leaves almost as quickly as he arrives because of Uryu's landmine, then apparently kills Rudobon in the middle of his fight with Rukia. The damage his impulsiveness does to the villains' plans may not be all that significant, though, especially in light of.
 * Subverted during the infamous "Tea With Aizen" scene. Aizen was instructing the Espada about the invasion by Ichigo and his friends. In the middle, Grimmjow gets up and makes to leave, stating his intention to kill them outright, even though Aizen was not done discussing his plan. He rudely rebuffs an order to sit back down, and is then cowed into obedience by Aizen.
 * In a fight against Ginjo, Uryu tries to tell Ichigo what he figured out about Ginjo's powers, but Ichigo gets bored, comes out of their hiding place and attacks Ginjo head-on. Ichigo is knocked back, and Uryu berates Ichigo for not listening to him.
 * Death Note
 * Matsuda, wanting to be of some use to the investigation, goes off to investigate Yotsuba on his own. Unfortunately, at that time, L is in the process of formulating a plan to investigate them that he repeatedly stresses has no room for error or independent action. Matsuda hears a vague reference to killing people, gets caught, and forces L and the others to bail him out. L is quite annoyed by Matsuda's stupidity, but manages to turn this to his advantage in his longer-term strategy, especially when the time comes to trap Higuchi and Matsuda is chosen to appear on TV to lure him out.
 * In the climax to the series,.
 * This tactic proves successful earlier in the series when Soichiro Yagami sneaks out of the hospital despite recovering from a (non-Kira-induced) heart attack, drives a police bus through the doors of Sakura TV's headquarters, and manages to stop the broadcast of the Second Kira's messages, despite L and the task force holding back after the second Kira kills Ukita.
 * In Yu Yu Hakusho, Yomi was a Leeroy Jenkins back when he worked for, often going on unauthorized and dangerous raids of his own, until he was eventually blinded in an attack that set up for him in an attempt to get him out of the way. He learned his lesson after that and developed into a calm, patient Magnificent Bastard.
 * In Macross, Hayao Kakizaki, brags about how great he is during his first meeting with Hikaru Ichijo. But in combat, he turns out to be a Leeroy Jenkins, who rushes into battle leaving himself wide open.  While, Maximillian Jenius, who acts scared at first, ends up being a genius pilot.
 * Shana from Shakugan no Shana, despite her confidence, was initially barely competent as a Flame Haze due to her Leeroy Jenkins tendencies, and if not for Yuuji's support from the sidelines, she would have likely died a few times over. This despite being quite intelligent.
 * Guts from Berserk, especially in his younger days, is very much a Leeroy Jenkins, but manages to succeed in that he's just that friggin' strong. Griffith, rather than try to reign him in, used his unit as a spearhead to disrupt, smash through, or otherwise destroy the enemy's front lines, which usually panic at the sight of him swinging his BFS.
 * Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
 * In the first season, Fate tries to extract the six unclaimed Jewel Seeds from the ocean using a spell. When there's a considerable reaction and the ocean itself seems to be attacking her, Admiral Lindy plans to stay back until Fate finishes and then go in and capture her, but Nanoha, who places higher priority on befriending Fate, intervenes with Yuuno to help against orders and leaves with half the Jewel Seeds. Lindy reprimands the two, but lets them off without punishment because things turned out well.
 * During the hotel attack in StrikerS, Shamal orders the forwards to hold the line against the gadget drones until Vita returns. Teana decides to go on the offensive and destroy the drones with a large Crossfire, which almost hits Subaru.
 * Signum, of all people, was guilty of doing this in the early chapters of the FORCE manga. Rushing into an opponent whose abilities are very dangerous against magical warriors(aka. her kind), without waiting for backup, without any upgrades(even worse by the fact that she's in fact weaker than before because of her toughness and recovering powers started to fade away since Striker S which take place six years before Force) and without considering that the little info and measures she had about said opponent's abilities can be a bit inaccurate. She got horribly trashed for her troubles.
 * Naoe Kanatsugu from the Sengoku Basara anime. This is a guy who, upon discovering that the opposing side has deployed Honda Tadakatsu (aka the army's frickin' Gundam), decided that the best course of action is to take it/him on single handedly with no more than a standard issue katana -- and naturally gets curb stomped. Maybe he thought katanas really can cut through tanks.
 * Two big ones in Utawarerumono. The first is Oboro, and in being a Leeroy he kicks off the events of the plot. He more or less grows out of this but is still very rash. The other is the emperor, who felt it would be a good idea to completely ignore his brilliant and highly paid general Benawi and start burning down random neutral villages, forcing them to side with Hakuoro. He doesn't get better, because this gets his country taken over and also gets an "assisted seppuku" for himself, courtesy of Benawi.
 * In the Fullmetal Alchemist anime,
 * Sailor Moon (i.e. Usagi) tends to be a bit Jenkins in some of her actions. In particular, her "I MUST SAVE MAMORU" first actions in the first season finale towards an enemy, even after it was shown that 'Mamoru' was very clearly an enemy and needed to be stopped, ends up causing her and her allies a lot of problems afterward.
 * Code Geass
 * Jeremiah Gottwald, upon hearing where Zero is during the battle of Narita, charges off to fight him, resulting in him being defeated and almost killed by Kallen's Radiant Wave Surger. In the Nightmare of Nunnally version of the battle, Alice goes after Zero, hoping to defeat him and be rewarded with a military or knight rank so that she can protect Nunnally.
 * Suzaku Kururugi also qualifies for this trope, in so much as military command structure will allow him to practice it. He always runs head-first at the enemy in order to defeat them. However, he is a Deconstruction of this trope because he knows damn well the likely result of it, and wants it to happen.
 * In one episode of Tokyo Mew Mew, Masha tries attacking the Monster of the Week in an attempt to prove useful, getting captured as a result and causing the Mew Mews to spend the rest of the episode trying to get him back.
 * In one episode of Durarara, Izaya and Shizuo, the latter known as Ikebukuro's "God of Destruction" are facing off with one another when a gang of thugs that Izaya had ticked off earlier come running into the middle of things. Upon recognizing Shizuo, they all immediately freak out, not knowing what to do. That all ends when one thug, out of pure fear, screams like a maniac and runs up to crack Shizuo over the head with an improvised bat. Cut to Shizuo punching the guy out of his clothes, then proceeding to Curb Stomp everyone else in sight.
 * In Mahou Sensei Negima, Nagi Springfield turns out to have acted like this all the damn time; his first reaction to just about any threat is to charge blindly at it. Of course, as he's quite possibly the strongest person alive, it almost always works.
 * Dragon Ball
 * Son Goku typically works in this fashion, at least in the original Dragon Ball, where his plan usually consists of going off after an enemy that's hurt his friends on his own without any care in the world to whatever plan they might have set up, or in other words to simply pound people's faces in. This is most notably seen in the Red Ribbon Arc and especially the Piccolo Daimaou Arc, where Goku ignores a direct order from Master Roshi of all people to not rush off after the enemy.
 * In Z, he (and Piccolo) take this tack with Frieza, ignoring King Kai's warning against going off against Frieza.
 * Black Star in Soul Eater, frequently as his direct approach (he is ostensibly an assassin) worked for minor threats, but not for big ones. He doesn't so much grow out of it as he becomes better able to face the situations he rushes headlong into. The recklessness and obstinate insistence on his own greatness remain.
 * Kimba the White Lion: Kimba can be a good planner when he tries to be and is usually successful when it comes to fighting, but it's a safe bet that he would rush out and attack/attempt to befriend the Villain of the Week and ignore the advice of his friends; this method cost him a few battles.
 * Digimon
 * Digimon Adventure: Tai has always been an Idiot Hero, but he went through only a brief phase of this trope outright. Eventually the group came to the observation that a partner Digimon's tamer has to be in danger for them to evolve. So, as part of his increasingly desperate attempts to get Agumon to evolve to Perfect, he... runs straight into the battlefield. It works and he quickly learns not to do it again for a DAMN good reason.
 * Marcus of Digimon Savers is an outright example, to the point of leaping off highrise buildings to punch giant mons. Apparently, that's how a man lives.
 * Natsu from Fairy Tail almost never pays attention to mission briefings and will rush off to confront the enemy alone. He also seems to have no concept of stealth. This attitude nearly gets him killed in the Edolas arc because he keeps forgetting that his powers don't work.

Board Games

 * In chess, the Scholar's Mate is a version of this, which involves bringing out the queen and bishop to try to checkmate the opponent in the first few moves. It's popular with beginners, but any experienced player can easily fend it off and get a much better position.

Card Games

 * In Magic the Gathering, there is a number of creatures with "this creature attacks each turn if able", which essentially makes them Leeroy Jenkins, and a few other cards which let you turn your opponent's creatures into Leeroy Jenkins.
 * A particularly notable card is "Lust for War", which has your opponent's creature go all Leeroy Jenkins, and whenever it taps (which it usually does when attacking), it does three damage to its controller. Red is generally the color of rage.
 * A Red Burn deck uses this concept for the player. It essentially is filled up with a lot of direct damage spells, and hopes that you draw enough of them to kill the opponent with sheer momentum. The problem with this deck is no matter what the game will end on Turn 6; either they kill the opponent with their spells or die from the inevitable counter attack, since burn decks seldom to have any creatures to actually defend the player. The reason this is still considered a "noob" deck is that there is very little strategy beyond "draw and pay for as many cards as you can each turn".
 * The Yu-Gi-Oh! card game has a few cards of this type. Berserk Gorilla, for instance, must attack if at all possible, and Battle Mania, a trap that Yusei once used, forces all of your opponent's monsters into attack mode, and forces them to attack during the Battle Phase.

Comic Books
"Deadshot: Is there a plan here, or do we just shoot things at random?"
 * Bob and Dave (especially Bob) in Knights of the Dinner Table.
 * Hilariously lampshaded in Runaways. After Chase runs screaming into battle, Victor actually says to Gert, "You and Old Lace go after Leeroy Jenkins."
 * Ares, Marvel Comics' God of War, once pointed out a list of thing like "white flags, taking prisoners, Geneva Convention thing and checking out if you have enough bullets before rushing into the battle" to conclude that about those things his sister Athena cares. He's that other God of War. To be fair, he is the God of War as in "conflict", and Athena is Goddess of War as in "strategy". So it's in character for him; less in character for Athena to care about Geneva Convention and white flags, considering the original (Greek) myths. She probably doesn't; Ares, being Ares, probably just assumes that everything in war that he doesn't like must be her thing.
 * Mark Waid once wrote that The Avengers' Battle Cry is "Avengers Assemble". The Fantastic Four's is, "Johnny, wait!"
 * The Flash: Impulse used to have this as his primary character trait. Justified in that he was raised in a computer simulation, and basically saw the world as a big video game without long term consequences.
 * In one Superman/Batman issue, the World's Finest are faced against "Doomstroke", a Fusion Dance of Doomsday and Deathstroke The Terminator. While Batman is wracking his brain trying to figure out what they should do, Superman roars, "We don't have time for strategy!" and punches him, knocking out one of his teeth. Fortunately, this causes Doomstroke to retreat.
 * Subverted in an issue of Trinity. The heroes are sent to the Mirror Universe, and decide to liberate it. While Batman and Wonder Woman are trying to come up with a plan, Superman storms the Crime Syndicate's base. At first, the others think he did an idiotic move, but Supes beats them all and delivers their unconscious bodies. Superman explains that he deduced that the evil counterparts had grown complacent, as they had been ruling their world without any challenge for years. Also, as they killed their enemies right away, they never developed any real combat experience, while Superman did, since he always fights enemies who have an intent to kill him over and over again. It also helped that he, Batman, and Wonder Woman had had a mind-link put on them that allowed Supes to draw upon their skills and abilities.
 * As Deadpool once said: "F**k plans."
 * Explicity shown here
 * Subverted in Asterix as the Gauls don't need to plan their attacks -- they can just charge right on in and win the fight. Played straight on occasion with over-eager Roman troops who think it'll be a piece of cake to take down a handful of undisciplined Gauls.
 * Assassin and marksman Deadshot in the DCU sometimes acts like this. Somewhat explained by the fact that he has a death wish (or more accurately is apathetic about death). He can follow a plan, but if he sees his shot open, he'll take it without hesitation. Several Suicide Squad missions have been cut short by Lawton killing their target while the rest of the team was in the planning stage.

""Plan schman. Beat the crap out of 'em while yelling a lot. It's in every movie.""
 * Groo the Wanderer
 * Huntress, sometimes.
 * Green Arrow can be portrayed like this in team books, especially when played against a more level-headed character.
 * Batman: "We need a plan of attack!" The Creeper: "I got a plan... ATTACK!"
 * Woodrow "Woody" Van Chelton of Quantum and Woody, whose solution to nearly every problem is to jump in with guns blazing.

Fan Works

 * This Chapter from the Disgaea fic Disgaea: Jewel of the Gods shows that busting through fortresses, with no strategy at all, is the one thing Laharl and Adell agree on.
 * In the Good Omens fanfic Manchester Lost by JA Moczo, the archangel Michael is one. While the party is trying to sneak quietly into Hell to rescue a captured comrade, he begins by attacking the first (non-threatening) demon he sees. Crowley (the Noble Demon / party leader) deadpans, "There goes my next raise... [and] thanks to John Wayne here we just lost the element of surprise for absolutely no reason, because demons don't permanently die in Hell." Michael also attacks the Cerberus by himself, despite having the other Archangels as backup. And when faced with an entire army of demons, he walks up to them (again alone) to the tune of "You're the Best." And when, what is his response? "Awesome."
 * Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Abridged: "Now that we're in Dio's lair, we should think of a plan to--" "COMBAT TIME!!!" *smash*
 * Allright, I'm to confront Cersei, Eddard Staaaark!
 * In A Cure for Love Light of all people does this. When the taskforce are faced with a crazy that's waving a gun around and is also holding onto a Death Note, Light forgets their previous strategy session and just lunges for it. Semi-justified in that  at the time and so his reaction is somewhere along the lines of "My precious" -- he doesn't understand why, but he really wants that notebook.

Films -- Animation

 * The Monsters vs. Aliens DVD includes a bonus feature of a storyboarded Leeroy Jenkins scene. It mentions Leeroy Jenkins by name. You've gotta love B.O.B.

Films -- Live-Action
"Obi-Wan: This time, we go in together. Anakin: I was going to say that."
 * In The Return of the King, Merry and Pippin are the first to charge at the host of orcs coming out of Mordor. Luckily, the rest of the army quickly overtakes them.
 * The Town ends with an incredibly stupid example of this.
 * In The Incredible Hulk (2008 film), main villain Emil Blonsky is very much a Leeroy Jenkins; it is heavily implied that, in his eagerness to fight the Hulk, he prematurely springs an attack on Banner before sniper teams and other supporting units can properly get into position, causing Banner to transform into the Hulk before the military can subdue him. Also (he may not have hurt anyone but himself, but still): "That all you've got?" *THUD* Cue him having every bone in his body broken in about half a second.
 * Star Wars
 * Episode II: Attack of the Clones: Anakin and Padme rush to Geonosis to rescue Obi-Wan, only to be captured themselves.
 * Obi-Wan detailing a plan of attack against Dooku which Anakin doesn't wait to hear before charging in.
 * He however learned from his mistake and doesn't go Rambo in Revenge of the Sith, when they fought Dooku again.

One could argue that leading the inexperienced troops into battle earlier than expected (before Algren could finish training them) was a Leeroyish move by his commanding officer. Funnily enough, Algren served under (and survived!) notable real-life Leeroy Jenkins General George Armstrong Custer, and at at least two points in the film angrily points out he's no fan of the man and his suicidal tactics. "Custer: We're Americans! We don't plan, we do!"
 * Played straight in The Empire Strikes Back, when Admiral Ozzel's eagerness for battle results in the fleet coming out of lightspeed too close to the Rebel base, thus alerting the Rebels to the Imperial invasion. Needless to say, Lord Vader is not pleased. Though debatable, given they were already packing up, so they might "already" have had the shield on, and if the Fleet hadn't jumped in early the Rebels might have gotten more ships away.
 * Luke rushing off to face Vader at Cloud City without completing his training and over the protests of both Obi-Wan and Yoda.
 * Subverted in Return of the Jedi. When the Rebel team on Endor sees Paploo run off alone toward the shield generator, they think he's going to blow their element of surprise, but he actually creates a useful distraction by loudly stealing a speeder bike.
 * Subverted in Sam Peckinpah's Cross of Iron. The two lead characters are about to mount a suicidal two man charge on the advancing Russian army when
 * The 2009 Star Trek film has a brief "Leeroy" moment, when the Red Shirt pumps himself up for his fateful skydive onto the Romulan planetary drill.
 * Paper Moon has a hilarious example. During most of the film, a father and his daughter work as conmen. His daughter is quite good, too. After a while, though, they get arrested by police. How do they escape? The Daughter just shouts RUN!!
 * In S.W.A.T., the main character and his partner infiltrate a bank where robbers are holding hostages. The partner breaks his "hold" order and attacks, killing the robbers but wounding a hostage, who sues the city as a result. Through this could be a subversion in that the bank robbers were planning to kill the hostage and if the officers had followed the hold order, the hostage would have likely died.
 * In Troy, the epic hero, Achilles pulls his own Leeroy-esque move as he attempts to take the beach of Troy with roughly fifty soldiers (several of which are immediately sniped by Trojan archers). Of course, all is amended when Achilles himself sets foot on the sand and promptly begins to run through the Trojan forces. After his brief exhibition of Nigh Invulnerability (it was pretty bad, too, it was like he ate an invincibility star from a Mario game), he proceeds to desecrate the statue of Apollo, and then performs his second Crowning Moment of Awesome by throwing a javelin about 200 Yards and successfully smiting a Trojan captain, and scaring the bejesus out of Hector.
 * The Year One DVD includes a bonus feature where the cast plays out the Leeroy Jenkins skit, complete with some of the dialogue from the original machima.
 * In The Bourne Ultimatum,
 * In The Last Samurai Algren leads a newly-formed regiment in the introductory battle against the Samurai, who fight without firearms. The plan is to hold fire til the Samurai are within range and let loose. Of course, one soldier fires off accidentally, which the other soldiers mistake as the cue to fire their weapons, despite the commanders screaming to cease fire. Their volley's spent before they have time to reload and the Samurai overrun them effortlessly.
 * More fun with Custer: This is the general depiction of the man in Night at the Museum 2.

"West: Gordon, what's your plan for getting this thing off my neck? Gordon: Excuse me? West: Well, that's what you're here for, right? You're the master of this mechanical stuff. Gordon: (chuckling maniacally) Oh ho ho, I see. Now I'm the "master of this mechanical stuff." As opposed to five minutes ago, when I was calmly and coolly trying to find a solution to this very problem. But then something happened. Someone, who will remain nameless -- JIM WEST! -- decided to jump over the wire, thereby providing us with that exhilarating romp through the cornfield, and that death-defying leap into the abysmal muck! And here we stand, with that demented maniac hurtling towards our President, with our one and only means of transportation, with Rita as his prisoner, armed with God-knows-what machinery of mass destruction, with the simple intention of overthrowing our government and taking over the country! West: Gordon, I think you need to calm down. Gordon: I can't be calm! Oh, no, no, no, no, I'm the "Master of the Mechanical Stuff"! And I have to help you! You, the master of the STUPID STUFF!"
 * Ghosts of Mars: "Come on, you mindless mutherfuckers!"
 * In Rob Roy, a small group of Rob's clansmen are watching a large troop contingent burn a farm belonging to them. They see that the soldiers are too many to fight directly, so they prepare to draw back into the fog and continue to harry them. Then Rob's little brother Alisdair sees that the leader of the soldiers is the man who raped his sister-in-law. So he takes a shot at him from extreme long range and misses, which alerts the soldiers to the presence of the clansmen. Nearly all of the Scots are promptly butchered when the soldiers chase them.
 * Deconstructed to an extent in The Hurt Locker, where the adrenaline junkie main character insists his EOD team run into a series of darkened alleyways to attempt to find the insurgents behind a car bombing. Both of his teammates call him out on it, but since he outranks them they have to go anyway. The ensuing firefight nearly gets one of them killed.
 * In Wild Wild West, West constantly ignores Gordon's planning and runs right into battle. Only after he causes them to run for their lives and runs out of other options does he ask for Gordon to work out a plan. Gordon doesn't take it too well.

"Captain America: You need a plan of attack. Iron Man: I have a plan - Attack."
 * In the 2011 movie Thor, Thor decides to gather his five friends and embark on a "diplomatic" mission to the realm of the ice giants. After a deal of tension, Thor turns to leave, but a giant calls him "princess", prompting him to send Mjolnir through his head at Mach 2. His friends have no choice but to join in the ensuing fight, and while Thor smacks the army around without even trying, one of the other Asgardians is almost mortally wounded, and Odin exiles Thor for his lack of foresight.
 * Irene Adler gives us an example in the 2009 movie adaptation of Sherlock Holmes: When she, Holmes and Watson, Holmes and Watson begin to debate how to take down the many guards. They suddenly hear gunshots, and look up to see Irene already engaged in a firefight with the whole lot of them.
 * In The Untouchables Eliot Ness and the rest of the Untouchables plan to catch a member of Capone's gang midway through a deal with the assistance of the Canadian Mounties who are meant to wait for a signal from the feds before charging, mid-deal gun shots are heard as the Mounties charge anyway, subverted though as they are able to achieve what they wanted to do.
 * In The Avengers, Iron Man gives us this gem:


 * In the recent three musketeers movie, the titular musketeers are trying to devise the best way to get through a booby-trapped hallway. While they are discussing, Milady just runs through it, narrowly avoiding all the traps.
 * Averted in Blazing Saddles during the Mungo confrontation: "If you shoot him, you'll only make him mad."

Literature

 * In the Cory Doctorow novel For the Win, one of the only American characters in the book likes to make money by working with a group of Chinese gamers that help rich westerners with tough MMO battles for a living. Their "customer" in this case plays the trope completely straight, charging recklessly into the boss chamber and ruining the team's careful plans.
 * In The Cry of the Icemark, some militia breaking ranks to pursue the enemy at the wrong moment results in
 * In his first appearance in Guards Guards, Carrot Ironfoundersson was something of a Leeroy Jenkins -- except he still had discipline, and could be forestalled from doing any crazy shit by ordering him to do something else. Further, because he's Carrot, he pulls off what little Leeroy Jenkins-ish stuff his fellow Watchmen don't stop him from doing (arresting a dragon, arresting the head of the thieves' guild, arresting a rowdy bar in Ankh-Morpork, and arresting the Patrician). It should be pointed out that Carrot is technically which means that his success is justified. Remember: in Discworld, Reality is the bitch of the Theory of Narrative Causality.
 * In Le Morte d'Arthur, Sir Gawaine starts a battle by beheading a Roman knight who insulted him at a parley; the trope is subverted in that Gawaine survives and the battle is won.
 * Namechecked in Walter Jon Williams' Implied Spaces: when Grax the Troll's battle cry turns out to be "Grax the Troll!!!!", the protagonist's cat remarks, "Not exactly 'Leeroy Jenkins', but I suppose it will do.".
 * The Arends in The Belgariad are a whole race to which this trope applies... they have a reputation for charging headlong into battles with little to no planning, though it crosses over somewhat with Honor Before Reason in their case.
 * Harry Potter
 * Harry Potter, all the time.
 * Sirius Black also shows this tendency in Prisoner of Azkhaban. Upon learning that the traitor who framed him has been living with the family of Harry's friend for the last twelve years in a guise of a rat, he immediately springs from the prison and rushes in to "save" his godson. In a true LJ fashion he ends up messing everything up.
 * Also, Voldemort himself.
 * In Redwall, Felldoh comes over as one too. His actions Guess he learned his lesson.
 * Percy Jackson and The Olympians: Several characters, which makes sense considering that most of them have ADHD. The grand prize, however, definitely goes to Percy himself. Other characters have even told him what a Leeroy he is! Seriously!
 * Don't even try to tell Milla of The Seventh Tower to retreat. If she's not getting you captured by the guards, she's getting you smote off a hill by angry sentient clouds.
 * Larry Niven's sentient-carnivore Kzinti always attack before they're ready. The greater the chance of defeat, the greater the honor of victory! This tendency was bred into them by the Jotoki, and eugenically bred back out when their suicidal warriors died in glorious battle.
 * There is whole fleets in The Lost Fleet that fights in this way. Deconstructed as it results in heavy losses..
 * Count Thespides from the Conan story "Black Colossus" ignores Conan's sage military tactics and rushes into battle with his men, falling straight into the fiery trap of Natohk in the process, mainly due to his aristocratic pride and his difficulty in taking orders from a foreign barbarian. Conan refuses to go to his aid, and when Yasmela's page asks why, he replies, "Because I am not so great a fool as he."
 * The eponymous Prince Roger, much to the constant despair of the marine attachment trying to safely get him home from the Death World they're shipwrecked on.
 * In Septimus Heap, Jenna attacks Jakey Fry without a concern for not being seen by the pirates that are fighting above her.

Live-Action TV
""He's shooting at scraps of metal." "He's got his fucking bayonet out. Doin' his Rambo thing." Capt America: Shoot that fucking dog! (...)
 * A truly unforeseen shout-out: The effective series finale of vampire show Moonlight has one of the main characters assaulting a federal transport while yelling, "LEE-ROOOOY JENKINS!"
 * Captain America, Generation Kill. "Engage those buildings, soldier. What are you waiting for? Engage ENGAGE!!! FOLLOW MY TRACERS!

"We've got to get Captain America off the coms.""

"Zoë: First rule of battle, little one: Don't ever let them know where you are. (Mal bursts in firing behind her) Mal: WHOO-HOO! I'M RIGHT HERE! I'M RIGHT HERE! YOU WANT SOME O' ME?! YEAH YOU DO! COME ON! COME ON! Zoë: ... Of course, there are other schools of thought."
 * Firefly
 * Back in his army days, Mal from had a tendency to be this. Possibly as a result, hardly any of his squad members survived.

"Randy: Besides, you know I've always wanted to fight thirty people at once. LLLEEEERROOOYYY JEEENNNKIIIINSS!! (Dives headlong into attacking mob)"
 * And in the movie, it's the always cool, competent Zoë of all people who does a minor version of this, abandoning the defensive line set up in order to fight hand to hand. . The sheer death wish of this move horrifies even Jayne.
 * Babylon 5 features a whole species of Jenkinses in the Narns. The biggest instance is in the pivotal episode Severed Dreams, where Garibaldi declares to his team that they've reached the right spot to hold their ground against the imminent boarders. The Narns keep going; he shouts "Nuts!" and orders everyone to follow them. Described in the script as "But the Narns, being Narns, keep going."
 * In an episode of My Name Is Earl, Randy decides to stand up for his little brother against an angry mob.

"Spike: I had a plan! A good plan! Smart! Carefully laid out! But I got bored!"
 * In Scrubs, Laverne helps Carla break in Turk's car by shouting, "LAVERNNNNE ROBERRRRRRTS!!" and punching the window. To her dismay, Carla had the keys to Turk's car in the first place.
 * Interestingly, this trope appeared in its modern form years before popularization via the internet. An episode of Matlock features Matlock's sidekick conducting a screaming charge (ultimately into a couch) with "TYYYYLER HUUUUUUUDSOOOOON!"
 * NCIS has an instance of the name in question -- it shows up on a list in Season Four, Episode 87 "Skeletons", right above the highlighted name the viewer is supposed to notice.
 * Similarly, Psych has a villain named after the original Leeroy, whose name Shawn announces with the appropriate gusto.
 * Twenty Four
 * Chase often got into trouble in the third season because of his tendency to act on his own, especially when pursuing Jack to Mexico.
 * Many plans that are laid out in detail that involve civilians or former terrorists fall apart when someone deviates from the plan and acts independently, like in the first season, when one of Senator Palmer's aides stabs the person she is supposed to be recording instead of excusing herself after learning of his planned rendezvous with a fellow conspiracy member. To be fair, this was that woman's Crowning Moment of Awesome. (It's that kind of show.)
 * This later causes another Leeroy moment when Jack Bauer poses as the murdered guy to meet the conspiracy member. As he waits in a cafe, one of the snipers who has a personal issue with Bauer begins to taunt him before being told to shut-up by CTU head George Mason. When the conspiracy member realizes Jack is not the guy he was supposed to meet, the sniper ignores all instructions to hold fire (they needed the guy alive) and fatally shoots the suspect causing a loud "DAMNIT!" from Jack Bauer.
 * Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother does this in an episode. BARNEEEY AH-STIIIIIN-SAAAAHNNN!!
 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer
 * Spike sometimes does this. He's perfectly capable of coming up with a good plan, but he rarely has the patience to pull it off. This tendency was made clear in his first appearance, when he was supposed to lead the vampires to kill Buffy on the Night of St. Vigeous, a day of vampiric significance when their power would be heightened -- but attacked the day before instead, getting a lot of them killed because he was too impatient to wait.


 * On occasion, Buffy show shades of this. But really, it's to be expected, considering that her job basically consists of two things; figuring out how to kill something, and doing so.
 * Heroes season four has Peter rushing off to stop a madman with a gun when he has Rene's ability, in spite Claire's insistence that he should've sent her since she's the one that can't be hurt by bullets. Partially justified in that he's trying not to think about the fact that is dead.
 * There is the episode in Lost where the survivors corner Ethan, but just as they are going to imprison him and presumably ask him some vital questions about the island, . There is at least one review out there calling a Leeroy Jenkins.
 * Stargate Atlantis. Ronon has shades of this, preferring action to planning. However, Sheppard is usually able to restrain him and he generally goes along with the plans.
 * Pretty bizarre considering the source, but Zeke and Luther has one of these coming from Nana Waffles. Even weirder considering the context, which... involves her playing an MMO with a few other people who are carefully planning out their strategy.
 * In the season finale of Community, For a Few Paintballs More: "VICKI!!!"
 * Mulder of The X-Files is infamous for rushing into dangerous situations without thinking things through, usually with less than great results.
 * The "real" Leeroy invades CNN's 2012 virtual Super Tuesday coverage on The Daily Show.
 * Clark Kent from Smallville has an annoying habit of charging into a situation without checking the area for kryptonite or other anti-Kryptonian hazards.
 * The Leeroy Jenkins meme is referred to by name (as well as the follow-up line, "he just ran in") in Level Up.

Tabletop Games

 * Werewolf: The Apocalypse has several "battle howls" a character could use. One of them, a signal that one was going to try something particularly daring, desperate, or deranged, was interpreted by younger werewolves as, roughly, "Hey, watch this!" and by older werewolves as "Back off, I'm gonna try something stupid!" On the bright side, if they pulled it off, they would often get a lot of Glory points.
 * Dungeons and Dragons:
 * In 1st Edition, the Cavalier class in the Unearthed Arcana supplement was required to charge recklessly into battle, even if doing so interfered with or harmed his allies.
 * The 3.5 character class Knight is encouraged to act this way. Knights cannot make surprise attacks and gain bonuses for shouting challenges at foes, so the most effective tactic is to charge into a room and bellow out a challenge.
 * In 4th Edition, there's actually an item that acts as a Leeroy: the Invulnerable Coat of Arnd, which goads its wearer into pulling increasingly bold and stupid stunts in the middle of battle and rewards him or her for doing so. The Coat goes back as far as First Edition, although artifacts in 1E didn't get fully detailed descriptions.
 * Warhammer Fantasy Battle has two variations on this. The first, Frenzy, results in berserk units rushing after those expendable goblins, getting hammered in the face by Night Goblin Fanatics (who are spinning like tops and wielding massive iron morningstars) and then being surrounded (or, possibly, ending up in quicksand, falling over a cliff, or other unpleasant fate). The second comes when an enemy unit runs away and the troops who defeated them rush forward to catch them, disrupting a perfect defensive battleline and opening a hole for the enemy to exploit once they've finished ganging up on the Leeroy unit.
 * Warhammer 40000
 * If it's possible for an entire race to be made up of Leeroys, da Orks qualify: "You lot! Listen up, cos we got a proper scrap to look forward to now! This 'ere door's about to open, and when it does you will see wot we came here ta kill! Wot I want to see is a good 'ard charge! No fancy stuff! On yer feet! Check yer guns! Ready yer choppas! Last one out's a stinkin' panzy! WAAAGH!" Of course, the orks being the Orks, this often WORKS. Also, this also means that when the Orks DO use a plan, it ALWAYS works, because no-one expects Orks to EVER have a plan. Former Tau Empire Shas'o Commander Farsight being the most notable example (though he did survive to become former Shas'O through abandoning the Tau Empire, which is otherwise unheard of among Tau).
 * Also from Warhammer 40000 we have the World Eaters Chaos Space Marines. Their "strategy" is to charge into battle blindly screaming "Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!" and waving chainaxes. This is due to the fact that their god, Khorne doesn't care whether blood flows from his enemies or his followers, just so long as it flows freely and profusely. The Khornate Berzerkers, being all superhuman gods of war, that 9/10 of these charges are usually complete successes goes to show what kind of place Warhammer 40,000 is, really.
 * The Universal Special Rule Rage embodies this trope in rules form. Basically if there are any enemy units in sight, the only decision you can make for the unit is whether they run or shoot during the shooting phase, in all other phases they will attempt to run as fast as possible to the nearest enemy unit visible to get into hand to hand. Khorne Berserkers use to have a primitive version of this rule in the previous edition, and currently the Death Company of Blood Angels is the most notable users/victims (although in their case it is intended as a last suicidal action).
 * Speaking of the Blood Angels, this trope is the reason they tend to plan their tactics around aggressive offensive actions centered around their assault squads carving a breach into the enemy line for the rest of their force to wedge into. Because any one of them can potentially be overcome with Unstoppable Rage when the Genetic Memory of his primarch's death flashes into his mind, a focus on direct attack means that their plans do not get compromised if one marine goes charging ahead to get to grips with the foe.
 * The Space Wolves chapter recruits are prone to this in their earlier years. While in other chapters the position of Scouts and devastators are entrusted to new recruits, in the Space Wolves chapter these responsibilities are handled by old, wizen lone wolves and Longfangs (Space Wolves that have grown so old that their teeth grow into long fangs) respectively. Instead, the new recruit is given a suit of power armor, a pistol and a close combat weapon and are used as shock troops. This is because the Space Wolves themselves are Boisterous Bruisers and almost all new recruits are leeroys, so they have poor tactical choices and aim, whereas Longfangs are much more composed during a firefight and lone wolves know when to not jump out of the bushes.
 * Lone Wolves, ironically enough, also have Leeroy Jenkins tendencies due to the fact that they're the last members of their "packs" and want nothing more than to restore their honor by dying gloriously in battle. In fact, to reflect this, they have the Special Rule "A Glorious Death" that actually denies the opposing player a kill point if the Lone Wolf dies in battle, instead granting the point if he survives to the end of the game.
 * Blood Claws that never get over their Leeroy Jenkins mentality are actually given warbikes and jump packs to make them more effective with it.
 * One survival suggestion in Paranoia is to trick everyone else into playing the Leeroy.
 * GURPS has the disadvantage "On the Edge". You have to make a control roll to avoid doing something stupid. Also Impulsiveness, Berserk and Bloodlust.

Toys
""If you want power, and another has it, you get it not by outwitting him -- you get it by stepping over his corpse.""
 * Bionicle
 * Makuta Icarax doesn't like the complex plan that Teridax has thought up to conquer the universe and thinks that everything would be easier if the Brotherhood of Makuta simply demolished everything in its path:


 * While Icarax's attitude has gotten him seriously hurt a few times, he at least hasn't endangered his fellow Makuta or their plans yet. Toa Vakama, however, is another story: in his determination to make a rescue, he refused to acknowledge that something was Very Wrong and wouldn't make time for little things like "caution". He ended up marching his team straight into the enemy base, where they got captured, mutated into half-beast freaks, and nearly killed. His team wasn't happy, and they didn't let it go until they realized their griping was helping to lead him to a Face Heel Turn.
 * Icarax ultimately inverts the trope when he tries to throw a wrench into Teridax's The Plan.

Video Games
"Thrall: All right, we're moving through the Stonetalon Peak. Don't attract any of the humans. Then... Grom: Ah, screw it. Let's go purge these humans! GRROOOOOMMMMM!!! HEEEELLLSCREEEAAAAMMM!!! Thrall: Oh my God, he just ran in... SAVE HIM!"
 * Leeroy might've popularized the term. But in actuality, he was preceded by none other than Grom Hellscream in Warcraft III. In the Orc campaign, Thrall was on his way to Stonetalon Peak, trying to avoid contact with humans. Grom suddenly declared that he could wait no longer and that the humans needed to be killed, and so charges off with his own army to the human encampment, at which point you're basically forced to fight the humans as well. Particularly annoying is that if Hellscream used more than five of his 30-odd troops, he could obliterate them all by himself. The dialogue, in a nutshell:

"Blair: Should I use missiles, sir, or ship's guns? Col. Halcyon: Guns, (callsign). Save your missiles for important targets."
 * World of Warcraft
 * The creators of World of Warcraft have crafted an homage to Leeroy in this achievement.
 * One quest has you escort a group of soldiers. Their commander charges into battle shouting, "Okay guys, let's do this!", a line from the original video.
 * Saurfang the Younger tries this tactic against The Lich King: "Enough talk! Let it be finished!" It doesn't work.
 * In a player example, there is a significant abundance of Leeroy Jenkins behavior in the Alterac Valley. This is especially bothersome on the Horde side while Zerg-rushing Van is virtually impossible. These players also get quite annoying in that they will attempt the same tactics, over and over again in multiple Battlegrounds. They also consider a game won due to a hastily formed ragtag defense that manages to compensate for the pathetic Zerging attempts an assurance that Zerging is the best way to win. This usually remains an issue up to the 80 bracket and varies server to server.
 * Any game where you have to protect someone. Usually they will be too eager to blindly run into your line of fire or try to take on enemies that are clearly stronger than them.
 * An interesting variation of this occurs in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty; near the endgame, escorts Raiden, the player-character, through a particularly tenacious bunch of enemies. You're supposed to run ahead while he provides cover fire, but once you get to the end of the corridor, he runs out and stands still, in the open, to "cover" you. Of course, the enemies are JUST smart enough to attack him, and if he dies, you do. You know, I'd think  would be just a bit better at the whole stealth thing.
 * Justice League Heroes has an entire level in which Superman becomes the Leeroy. He's so anxious to get revenge on Darkseid (after an earlier bit of Cutscene Incompetence on the part of the Justice League) that he goes charging headlong into a fortress and not bothering to defend himself. This becomes a bad Escort Mission in which the player has to try to protect Superman until the end of the level. Of course, since this is Superman we're talking about, sometimes it's less of an "escort mission" and more of a "just stay out of the way while Kal-El does his Unstoppable Rage" mission.
 * Fallout
 * Fallout 3 has Initiate Reddin who Sarah Lyons refers to as a trigger happy liability. Moments later said character is seen rushing towards a noise that is heard and is instantly killed as a super mutant behemoth smashes into the scene and attacks everyone present.
 * In Broken Steel, they altered a scene where the player takes on the Talon Company (a group of For the Evulz Mercenaries) at their main base. If the player decides to wait until after activating Project Purity to strike, you'll find out that Talon Company was attacking the caravans that the Brotherhood was using to hand out purified water. There's a tied-up Brotherhood Paladin inside the Talon base, if you free him you'll find out he rushed ahead of the rest of his unit and got captured. Said Paladin then charges back against the entire enemy army, and other Bo S members show up, but due to their lack of numbers, would get slaughtered trying to help the Paladin, if you don't lend a hand.
 * In the first game, your companions tend to be this. When the most obvious strategy is to stay back and wait for your enemies to come into range so you can take them out before they get close too close, your allies are sure to run forward and get permanently killed, forcing you to either reload a save, or find someone else to carry all your stuff.
 * Mass Effect
 * A soldier with the name "Richard L. Jenkins" appears in the first stage. He's the archetypal "chomping at the bit" newbie soldier, itching for battle and glory. Less than a minute into the first mission, before firing his gun even once, he is gunned down in a cutscene with no chance for the player to save him. However, this is actually something of a subversion. Although he does go in ahead of everyone else, this is because Commander Shepard ordered him to take point. Seeing as how he was in a three-man squad composed of a Space Marine (Jenkins), a commissioned technical expert (Kaidan), and the officer in command (Shepard), it can't even be argued that it was illogical to put him on point.
 * In Mass Effect 2, you run into a young man named Jonn Whitson, eagerly signing up to take down Archangel. Not only is his fate similar to Jenkins (if you don't intervene), but he also looks like him and has the exact same voice.
 * Also in Mass Effect 2, Prazza on Freedom's Progress. When Tali tells him that he's working with Shepard, like it or not, he ignores her and instead goes forward with a small squad to find Veetor. He and most of his squad are then eviscerated by the giant mech Veetor reprogrammed to attack on sight.
 * Mass Effect 2 has this as a gameplay mechanic. Vanguards are given a move called the Biotic Charge, where they can phase through obstacles and slam into enemies before shooting them. If they have shields then they only stumble back rather than go flying.
 * The third game does the same with the inclusion of Nova, the character drops their shields to do a powerful ground slam. In multiplayer this can be a problem: target the wrong enemy or one that biotic charge\nove won't work on or don't finish the job and you're hosed. Your teammates might rightly be reluctant to help you here.
 * (However a skilled Vanguard is a Lightning Bruiser easily capable of dishing out more damage than the rest of his/her team combined)
 * Grunt also goes on a Leeroy Jenkins charge if he survived the second game, holding off an army of Ravagers by himself
 * Krogan are built to do this in multiplayer, especially the Krogan Vanguard released in the Resurgence Pack. Instead of Fitness, the melee/shield boosting passive skill everyone else has, Krogan have Rage, which gives them increased damage reduction and melee damage if they kill three opponents with melee in under 30 seconds. Add the Vanguard's biotic charge, and a Krogan vanguard can be one of the most successful Leeroys ever.
 * Halo
 * The CE Campaign has one Private Wallace A. Jenkins supposedly die horribly. Ironically, he falls running away from the evil alien zombies... of course, this was years before the trope was even invented. However, information from the expanded universe proves this trope is actually averted with him as
 * A page from the 2006 Halo Graphic Novel has an L. Jenkins charging into the enemy while screaming, as a plasma grenade barely misses his helmet, and his squadmates are all staring at him.
 * Brutes in the Halo series are prone to this behaviour which contrasts with their ability to also fight smartly. When they berserk though, they can be the most dangerous, especially when fighting non berserking Brutes at the same time (the reckless berserker can flush you out to get you killed by the others).
 * Jun from Halo: Reach qualifies. Especially in the third level. See that Jackal with its back on you? Those sleeping Grunts will never know what hit them- aaaand you see Jun yelling and firing at them.
 * City of Villains/City of Heroes
 * City of Villains has a Shout-Out in the form of Jenkins, a recurring NPC ally who would have been surprisingly competent if he weren't saddled with the standard stupid critter A.I. He shows up in a City of Heroes mission as an enemy, quoting the video: "All right, chumps, let's do this!"
 * Of the "bad Escort Mission" variety we have Lady Jane, who not so much lacks survival instinct as has a deathwish. And until recently, you had to keep her alive. Much anger was had. To push the reference further, her initials are L.J.
 * There is also the recurring NPC hero in City of Heroes named Fusionette, who not only aggros mobs like mad, she's a Blaster.
 * Escorting people who could take damage was always risky in large teams, as the enemy damage scales while the escort's health doesn't.
 * On the playerside, there actually isn't nearly as much stigma in City of Heroes about this, as any decently built Scrapper or Brute has a good chance of surviving, if not winning. (Blasters on the other hand...) There's even semi-official terms for it: Scrapperlock and SMASH!
 * One of the most common complaints among Mastermind players is this, especially in ranged pets. Sometimes, one robot charging in to brawl is enough to get the whole team destroyed.
 * Duke Nukem Forever likewise has Private Leeroy Jenkins, who is "the only other poor motherbleeper who is as crazy to go with you." Guess just what happens right after his CO expressively asks you not to get him killed.
 * Guild Wars
 * The game has one also, a dwarf named Kilroy Stonekin. Missions with him typically involve trying to keep up with him and keep him alive while he charges from one mob of bad guys to the next.
 * Prince Rurik. "You are a pox on Ascalon, and I am the cure!"
 * Another dwarf very late into the Prophecies Campaign also Leeroys a bunch of Mursaat as a Heroic Sacrifice.
 * Heroes and henchmen can easily Leeroy. If you set them to "Aggressive" then they will attack a mob that is too close and they will actually aggro the swarm of enemies. Especially annoying to Henchmen-hero players who try to avoid fighting everything.
 * And now we welcome Captain Fal--...erm, Courier Falken. Who randomly spawns in several areas and asks players to escort him across the map.
 * The Elder Scrolls
 * There is also a similar NPC in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion who blindly rushes into a dungeon trap after requesting your help to save his fallen comrades. With a spot of luck he can be saved, although the programmers never intended this to happen and he will just stand around doing nothing.
 * Oblivion's NPCs invariably exhibit this trope, whether or not an amusing death has been scripted for them. As soon as the combat music starts playing, they'll yell "STICK TOGETHEEEEER!", and disregard their own advice by charging into the fray.
 * Special mention must go to Berich Inian, who fights alongside you in The Battle for Castle Kvatch - or, rather, who runs off immediately in to the largest group of Daedra he can find the moment you're out in the open.
 * And an extra special mention (quite possibly the trophy of this trope) to Farwil Indarys, the foolhardy son of the Count of Cheydinhal, who rushed blindly into an Oblivion Gate with a group of Knights and got all but one of his comrades killed. The player then has to babysit the two of them until the Gate has been shut. Farwill will bumrush every single enemy in sight, and will even follow them off cliffs and into the lava below. Pretty much the only certain way to make sure he gets home in one piece is to use a cheat code to turn off the combat AI and just let him follow you to the Sigil Stone.
 * Alternatively, use the fact that the AI does not move if you transition to a different place without them, leave the poor sod outside the tower with the Stone in it, grab the Stone and watch as he and his friend are thrown out of the collapsing hole, safe and sound.
 * This is sometimes a unit flaw in strategy games:
 * In Heroes of Might and Magic IV, the barbarian units (the berserkers, specifically) can't be controlled and will automatically use all their turns to charge at the enemy. This prevents the Might faction from using the "camping" tactic of staying back and letting fast enemy units get themselves slaughtered while wearing down more powerful and slow enemy troops with ranged attacks and spells.
 * "May charge without orders" is a unit trait in Medieval II: Total War. In addition to undisciplined and overzealous units (like certain crusade/jihad mercenaries and Highland Pikemen), the easily, commonly and quickly available Feudal Knights have it.
 * Fire Emblem
 * The three paladins that protect Princess Lachesis in Fire Emblem 4 stupidly attack the enemy and get themselves killed or injured, derailing your strategies.
 * It doesn't get any better in FE 7. The only neutral units (i.e. on your side but not controllable) with any sense of self-preservation are the ones you can recruit. Apparently green is the new red in the FE 'verse.
 * At least in FE 7 you can pick up these neutral peeps and keep them safe. Yeah, your stats will be lowered until you let them go, but that's better than just risking to lose them. FE 4 didn't have that command, so...
 * Suikoden III
 * Lulu fits this exactly,
 * To a much lesser extent, Hugo initially falls into this category and has to be stopped by Sgt. Joe. Not quite the same level as Lulu, but when compared to Chris or Geddoe or even Thomas, he is extremely reckless.
 * In the first level of Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 your squad is given orders not to fire on terrorists till another set of people arrive. Your overzealous teammate decides to say "Screw it" and get the negotiator killed.
 * Team Fortress 2
 * Despite the Pyro's intention as a class for ambushes, flanking and hit-and-run skirmishes, many players of Pyro (when they aren't spy-checking) seem to think that the class is for Leeroy Jenkins-style assaults on the enemy defences. Which, unless you're being Ubercharged, it isn't.
 * This type of Pyro is called the "W+M1 Pyro", W being the key to run forward and M1 being the key to fire respectively. The term is rather derisive, and is usually used to suggest that the person playing the Pyro that way is a Noob with that class for not yet picking up that there are more effective ways to play them.
 * Spies occasionally fall under this, when they will run straight up to an enemy sentry gun and sap it even when the Engineer or other enemies are standing right there. Other times a Spy will back stab the first enemy they come across even if it will drop their disguise in the middle of the enemy team and there are better targets available.
 * Other classes also tend to get more reckless than usual when being healed by a Medic (getting an HP cap boost AND a continual stream of healing does make you tougher to kill, but not invincible until the ubercharge pops).
 * Left 4 Dead is a Survival Horror game set in a Zombie Apocalypse, with serious emphasis on four-person Co-Op Multiplayer. As a result, there are about forty million times per level a player can do this. Some few examples:
 * The guy who runs ahead of the team and triggers the climax event before your team has even reloaded, let alone decided on a defensive position. Or runs ahead to get pounced by a Hunter or snatched by a Smoker. At which point they scream at you to go help them or they will blame you for not rushing in to save them.
 * Or the one who stays behind to take on a Tank when everyone else is fleeing, trying to save on health and ammo. Then again, most of these actions can be from a griefer.
 * And then there is the guy who tries to take on EVERY Witch the party encounters. A Leeroy Jenkins will usually get owned by the Witch 9 times out of 10. A decent player will just screw up sometimes, or just leave the damned mutant alone.
 * Or you have the guy who thinks running ahead to the end of the map will somehow help avoid all the infected when it is more likely that the director will either punish the normal players, causing them to scream at the runner, or the runner himself will get punished and then blame his team for not rushing in to save him (most players will let the guy die on his own).
 * And then there is the guy who thinks shooting all the car alarms is a good idea and think their team can handle the new horde, ignoring the fact that most players are trying to conserve health and ammo. Gets worse in The Parish when you have to go through a lot filled with car alarms and there's bound to be one guy who will try to trigger every single car, though he may be on his first play-through, or (much more likely) a griefer.
 * There is also that one guy who will split off from the group during Scavenge mode or the finales in Dead Center/The Passing to get gas cans on their own while everyone else sticks together to get the cans. You can bet your pills that the loner will be attacked, killed, then Rage Quit.
 * Veteran Versus players tend to use a glitch on the 4th misson of Dead Air at the main horde event. You activate the van, run for the fence and tell everybody to wait right in the car's way (the car just pushes the players through the fence giving a good ahead advantage for rushing the rest of the mission and leaving the infected team behind). Of course when you are on the run you realize that Louis just thought it was better to stand behind the counter and now he is being eaten by a horde. Not to mention when you are near the end of that mission and Louis again thinks that it would be fun to pass through the metal detector.
 * And on the Infected side, you have Hunter-users who insist on pouncing when the survivors other than the victim are nearby and not distracted by a mob of normal zombies. Or the Boomers who absolutely must suicide when they very well can hang back and recharge their puke.
 * Similarly, there will be Hunter players who insist on getting to the highest rooftop possible for the sake of making a 25 point damage pounce when they could have worked with the rest of the team to set up an ambush. Then there are Boomer and Spitter players who will charge at the survivors in the open and either get killed or hit one survivor and then be killed when they could have sniped at the survivors through a window or on a rooftop. On top of this, Tank players who have a case of the Leeroy will blindly run into the survivors' line of fire while trying to chase and attack them instead of taking cover so the rest of the zombie team can slow the survivors down.
 * Depending on the situation, this might also apply in reverse -- anyone's whos ever played a round of Left 4 Dead has at least once encountered another trigger-happy killer who will happily fall behind (or worse, charge in reverse) the rest of the group to shoot (although the behaviour is more common with melee users) stray zombies and rack up "kills". While it's fine to help defend the rear of your party, not learning to stick to the party/run and gun will very likely lead to incapacitation, and the annoyance of your team mates as they run back to help you.
 * Similarly, there are guys who will shoot a car that is near the safe house and will stay outside to kill the incoming horde or during the finale when the rescue has arrived, they will stay behind and keep killing zombies until they run out of ammo or get pounced.
 * Left 4 Dead 2 introduces the Grenade Launcher and Chainsaw. Both are powerful weapons but can also cause lots of friendly fire damage if not handled properly. A good player will usually have minimal friendly fire with these weapons. A leeroy will most likely take someone's health from the green to the red or incapacitate them with the said weapons.
 * The Molotov is a valuable bomb item that sets zombies on fire, but in the hands of a leeroy, they will most likely botch their throw often and wind up burning the survivors instead or block their path with the fire, delaying their progress and giving the infected time to attack.
 * Battlefield
 * Anyone who has completed the campaign in Battlefield: Bad Company will know that Haggard is a Leeroy Jenkins. While his squad was chasing a convoy of trucks filled the Legionares gold, they eventually came to an international border. If it was an enemy border, they would have kept going. It wasn't, though. The country the truck was entering was Neutral. That didn't stop Haggard. He ran in, waving his hands in the air, shotgun in one of them, screaming "THERE'S GOLD IN THEM TRUCKS!" while firing the pump-action into the air. Haggard's actions lead the squad leader to stay in the army for 1 year and 6 months (he was supposed to be leaving the next day), and their squad had to get out of the country themselves.
 * The multiplayer of these games is largely designed so that a Leeroy Jenkins-esque assault on an enemy group will never succeed. Seeing as professional Leeroys are either very bad at the game or actively trying to screw over their team, they will rarely get more than a handful of kills and stand no chance of getting an objective. Doesn't stop some people.
 * Also in the multiplayer, vehicles tend to be powerful enough to turn the tide of battle when used appropriately. When commandeered by a Leeroy, they essentially become very expensive taxis, which are usually abandoned as soon as they take a hit, even when cover is available, an engineer is actively repairing the vehicle, or when the hit is so weak as to cause minimal damage.
 * Best example is the aircraft. Loaded with rockets, bombs or machine guns, you will have either A) someone using it to rack up kills on a Conquest map or B) hop in one of these strategic resources for the sole purpose of jumping out over what they think is a good sniping position. A lot of mods, such as Project Reality, take steps to avoid exactly this sort of behavior by removing universal parachutes, making aircraft useable only to a certain class, etc.
 * There are too many new players in Jedi Outcast's multiplayer mode whose strategies consist of holding the run forward and attack buttons at the same time until someone dies (invariably them, also invariably at the hands of someone who spams a certain unblockable lunge attack).
 * Medievil started out with this, Dan, the hero, charged in way out of formation at the start of the fight against Zarok, only to be promptly killed by an arrow sniping him in the eye.
 * Final Fantasy
 * A healthy percentage of the playable characters in Final Fantasy IV:
 * Tellah, for dashing into battle alone against Golbez. Golbez just stands there and taunts him, presumably amused at the feeble old man casting his feeble old man spells (albeit ones worth several thousand damage apiece).
 * Then there's Edge charging Rubicante. Luckily for him, Rubicante is merciful.
 * The endgame probably also counts, when, without the help of the player party. By the way, this is after the parties in question realized that they're all on the same side. To be fair, though,.
 * Ashe from Final Fantasy XII wants to defeat the Empire. What's her plan of action? She has none... she just goes in and fights.
 * Snow Villers from Final Fantasy XIII and his "Heroes don't need plans" motto is deconstructed as the way he rush in a battle and make a false landing is an indirect cause of Nora Estheim's death. He gets better by at one point, he's talking to Lightning out about making a plan before attacking an enemy's base while he's wondering why he is so out of character.
 * Rafa from Final Fantasy Tactics on the Riovanne Rooftop castle where you're supposed to protect her. Stories abound of people having their Rafa charge in and promptly get killed, all before the player even gets a single turn in.
 * In BattleTech: The Crescenthawk's Inception, as you hired pilots, you would have to watch each new one to see how good they were (abilities varied from game to game). The worst of the bunch invariably charged with their very expensive and difficult to repair 'Mechs right into enemy squads.
 * If one were to press the triangle button in battle, while playing Persona 3/FES or Persona 4, one would see a perfect example of a Leeroy Jenkins. Unless you have been Level Grinding nonstop, or are on your New Game+ . Even more so if you waited for The Reaper to appear and initiate a Curb Stomp Battle.
 * Story-wise, in Persona 3, Junpei pulls one of these during one mission. Yukari and the main character manage to catch up before anything bad happens, though.
 * In Junpei's case it's due to his own frustration at either feeling inferior to male main or having his male ego hurt by having the female main and Yukari prove more reliable than he is that causes him to pull this off in an attempt to show off and prove himself capable. Naturally he fails and they need to work as a team to complete the mission and Junpei realizes how stupid he was being.
 * Wing Commander
 * In Wing Commander II, Blair once flies off on his own in order to save Stingray after he ejects, and gets reprimanded for it. In the game's final mission (on both paths), he flies off on his own to destroy the Kilrathi starbase, and when he succeeds, gets a McCloud Speech from Tolwyn.
 * In Wing Commander III, the Blair can choose to fly against after he, but if he does,  dies, and Blair is admonished.
 * Likewise, after Thrakhath transmits a FMV of Blair's Love Interest being Stuffed in The Fridge, you can rush in and fight him. ...Despite your carrier reminding you that they are preparing to abandon the system, and that you had better land if you don't want to be Trapped Behind Enemy Lines. (A design oversight that let you Take a Third Option was later patched.)
 * In Wing Commander I, Maniac, the worst pilot in the fleet, will frequently Leeroy his way around. He never listens to you and attacks at the first sign of the Kilrathi. His callsign is well-earned. By Wing Commander III, he's one of the best most skilled human pilots around...but still never listens to a word you say.
 * The only place he always obeys orders is on the final mission set in Wing Commander III. Anywhere else, anything but "break and attack" often gets ignored.
 * He's bad enough in the original that, at one point, your CO authorizes you to fire at him if his recklessness ends up jeopardizing the mission.

""LEEEROY JEEENKINS!" (Swedish cop goes flying)"
 * Baldurs Gate
 * In Baldur's Gate II, the rather impulsive Minsc literally goes berserk if Aerie dies while in your party, starts attacking any enemy in sight and will not listen to orders.
 * Only after the banter where he's asked Aerie to be his witch. Mazzy and Keldorn also make Minsc go berserk if they die.
 * If you get Nalia he'll ask her to be his witch instead, but he'll always choose Aerie over her. He'll still go berserk if Nalia dies, though.
 * Ninox 2 from Ace Combat X Skies of Deception acts like this, charging ahead of the plane formation and getting shredded by the Meson Cannon for his trouble.
 * Rose of Fable 2 gets a moment of this. When you're walking through an alleyway, a dog yelping is heard. Cue Rose rushing right up to its tormentor to challenge him... only to get promptly knocked out by a head butt, leaving you, her much smaller but thankfully also much tougher sibling to take the bully down. She gets up and, of course, promptly says "Thanks! I could've taken him though..." in true Leeroy style. It does illustrate the fact that while Rose is trying to be a responsible adult figure, she's still just a kid herself.
 * Your army in Sengoku Basara hardly doing anything to fight the enemy, making you go Leeroy Jenkins the only option. It usually works. No wonder a lot of fans prefer this game over Sengoku Musou, which require some strategy to use.
 * Enforced in Samurai Warriors 3, in Yukimura Sanada's final campaign mission. After Hideyori Toyotomi is assasinated by Hanzô Hattori, Yukimura himself declares the battle lost, and the victory conditions are changed to only Yukimura (the player)'s survival. Yukimura must then charge alone to Ieyasu Tokugawa's camp and kill him by himself. This was also done in the first game.
 * Supreme Commander features a variation of this, wherein the character himself is not a Leeroy Jenkins per se (the ACU is the primary builder and thus doesn't leave the base), but his tactics have every hallmark of the trope. In the fifth mission, you are joined by a fellow commander named Fletcher. This blatantly racist jackass should already be grating on your nerves, having been spouting his nonsense in every mission thus far, and his appearance on the battlefield doessn't help. The first thing he does is get enough mass extractors and energy generators running to let him build Fatboys. Then he'll do that. And nothing else. This retard will do absolutely nothing to defend himself (no defense towers, no shield towers, nothing) short of giving his ACU a shield, and your opponent will exploit this. You are expected to keep this bastard alive. To make things even more insulting (but also very satisfying),.
 * Star Fox 64
 * If you take too long to defeat the Sector X boss, Slippy will try to attack it only to be swatted aside and sent hurling off to Titania, forcing you to go rescue him in the next mission and ruining your chances of entering Venom the good way.
 * Falco is a pretty hotshot pilot, earning more kills than any of the rest of your wingmates -- if you can keep him from being shot down as he charges ahead.
 * Syphon Filter has an Agency operative named Jenkins who was killed along with the rest of his squad in Washington Park.
 * Soul Nomad and The World Eaters. Levin has the tendency to, as Gig put it, "find tornadoes of crap to jump into", and goes charging off without a second thought in many cases, whether it's to find his sister or pursue an enemy. The bad news is that he always attracts trouble doing this, and you have to clean up after him.
 * Maxwell in Scribblenauts becomes a Leeroy Jenkins of sorts (mainly due to finicky controls), where one mis-click while building an elaborate solution to a puzzle can often send Maxwell flying into a room filled with sleeping enemies, a tank of sharks, pit of lava, etc. causing you to fail the mission.
 * Alien Swarm can be full of these guys. You will have one type of Leeroy who will not stop moving and keep blazing through the level, regardless of his teammates who are getting mauled by the aliens. It also gets worse when you have these type of players do this in order to get the achievements for speed running a level and not tell the rest of the team what they want to do. Then there are the Leeroys who will spam power weapons like the Flamethrower or the grenade attachments from certain guns, regardless of who is in front.
 * Exit Fate: Any battle scenario where some of your troops are AI-controlled. The Battle at Grunthall is particularily grievous - the small force already in place will just charge the enemy and get slaughtered before you can reach them, even if you move as fast as you can, to say nothing about staying in formation. Even more frustrating, scoring an A on the battle allows you to get a particular war leader early (thus making later battles easier) but scoring an A is almost impossible when the AI screws up.
 * A rare example of an RTS being vulnerable to this is AI War Fleet Command. With the way the AI team works (openly ignoring resources and increasing in ferocity based on how much you piss it off) a player who mindlessly attacks system after system can end up getting everyone killed.
 * Valkyria Chronicles
 * Edy Nelson's embodiment of this is what kicks off the Edy Detachment DLC, where she chased after Imperial soldiers "screaming like a banshee" and gets herself and a few squadmates stuck behind enemy lines. They stumble upon a village under attack by more Imperial forces, so of course Edy rallies the group with her to go defend it. Towards the end of the mission, she hears that Rosie's been shot, so she runs across the battlefield to get to her, because she can't die until Edy surpasses her on the stage.
 * General Damon, the epically incompetent standard bearer for The Neidermeyer, kepr repeatedly trying this idiocy, especially in the anime even when an utter fool would call it suicide. For example, he once attempts to charge an Imperial held supply base in the middle of a forest across a stretch of open ground that is basically an Imperial advantaged free fire zone, which the enemy commander, Berthold Gregor, takes shameless advantage off as Damon's troops are killed en masse by a wall of artillery and infantry teams shooting the crap out of Damon's troops behind very good cover. What makes this even more suicidal is that the Imperials were not that numerous and quite vulnerable to a flank attack through the forest, a very simple strategy that Welkin Gunther and his handful of troops from Squad 7 use to their advantage and wind up pwning the whole base where Damon fails, all because they decided to spot a better opening and wait for the right time to use it.
 * Julianna Everheart from Valkyria Chronicles II is this, despite all the mentions of her being a tactical genius. Her idea of tactics is to rush your base alone, which might make some sense as she's a Fencer and Fencers have the best frontal assaults, but she's unsupported and can easily be flanked. Her reasoning is that she figured victory for her team was inevitable as long as she herself was perfect.
 * Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City has Agata, a Highly-Visible Ninja of Guild Mumotsumi. Traveling through the Yggdrasil Labyrinth can be difficult enough with a full party of five; Agata, meanwhile, likes to go charging in and leave the rest of his guild behind, heedless of the FOEs and other dangers. Depending on how you handle him,.
 * Dwarven soldiers will do this in Dwarf Fortress -- got one lone straggler, or a soldier to arrives to formation ahead of everyone else? He'll charge solo into a 10-goblin raiding party. Also companions in Adventurer mode -- you could be walking through the forest and your buddy disappears to go racing after deer, sometimes never to be seen again.
 * A quest in Dungeons and Dragons Online requires a party to protect an NPC, Coyle, for 15 minutes. Coyle attacks and provokes many enemies and dies all too easily, causing the quest to fail. Game developers eventually added an option to knock him out to protect him, yet players still have to keep Coyle from area-of-effect damage that will wake him up, again.
 * Sheva of Resident Evil 5 will often run towards large targets and fire her pistol at them, wasting her ammo and constantly costing her her life. This will eat up precious healing items and time, and sometimes she'll be far too distracted halfway across a stage with shooting at an unecessary enemy to come and heal you if you're dying or she may get herself stuck or killed on her way over. This is fully remedied if you're playing with a human character, and this can cause Fake Difficulty in certain areas.
 * Airforce Delta Strike has John Rundal. In the very first mission, he willfully disregards direct orders from his section leader and breaks off to take on more fighters. Meanwhile, the bombers he was orderede to shoot down were still flying towards their target with full payloads.
 * Zero pulls one of these in Mega Man X.
 * The Mission "Engine of Destruction" in Starcraft II has you attempting to protect Humongous Mecha who's driver is doing this.
 * Ally AI in Front Mission Evolved does this (enemy AI at least knows how to take cover every once in a while). Thankfully they're indestructible and can actually kill stuff on their own if you're not worried about a time limit.
 * Cry of Fear: After the mods launch the developers released a Scream trailer, a compilation of players such as Pew Die Pie, and Jack and Brad from Four Player Podcast getting scared by playing the game. A short segment stands out:


 * Call of Duty
 * In Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies, this is a major problem, especially with pickup games. Even though this mode of the game is essentially a survival shooter, and doesn't require the most strategy, planning, foresight, and timing are beneficial to the mission, as opening the wrong door at the wrong time, failing to hold a position, or simply not being cognizant of where you are at in relation to your teammates, can make all the difference between a successful level, and a disastrous defeat. In Cod:BOZ, it´ s quite common to end up on teams with one or more Leeroy Jenkinses who will, without consulting the team or anything:
 * open various doors as soon as they get the money. This increases the number of active zombie spawn points to deal with, making it harder for any one person to kill all zombies in their area. It also effectively shortens the amount of time that a player can spend in an area grinding for points that they could use later on in the stage: instead of having to guard only one window, each individual person now has to guard two or three windows. Average joe A may have been able to guard 1 window for X rounds, but when tasked with two or three windows, after a certain volume of zombies, they have no choice but to leave early, and thus forfeit points that would have come in handy later on.
 * run into various windows that people are already occupying. The major problem with this being that often times, 2 people in one window is just another way of saying 0 people in another one. Teams often get overrun by this, and by its variant, wherein said Leeroy runs into another window, you run into his, only to be killed by zombies that ran out of the window that you left to Leeroy: Leeroy more often than not has ADHD, and won't stay in any window for any period of time.
 * run into various parts of the map without proper backup or weapons, expecting you to save him. This will kill a team quickly as well: this troper has found that it doesn't really matter how much ammo you waste trying to save Leeroy, they'll just die again in 30 seconds. Unfortunately, due to the poor hosting system that COD:BOZ has, this can lead to Leeroy attempting to hijack the game: threatening to quit and end the game for everyone if they let said Leeroy die.

Real Life
"(General Phil Sheridan pulls a flask from his pocket and toasts the Confederate artillery on the ridge) General Phil Sheridan: Here's at you! (the Rebels open fire on Sheridan and his staff, but only manage to shower them with dirt and make Sheridan furious) General Phil Sheridan: THAT WAS UNGENEROUS! I'LL TAKE YOUR GUNS FOR THAT!"
 * Truth in Television: in real life there were quite a few battles that the losing side could have won if some of the troops didn't attack or charge before the order was given.
 * See, for example, the Battle of Bannockburn. The English army included large numbers of archers, who could potentially have massacred the Scottish schiltrons with little difficulty. Instead, the English knights charged en masse and were slaughtered.
 * And a more extreme example of the same mistake was the Battle of Crécy, at which, according to some accounts, the French knights actually rode over their own archers, such was their eagerness to get to grips with the English. Who shot them down by the hundred. Made worse when the French commander ordered his crossbowmen forward, without their pavises (big, thick shields) that they would normally crouch behind in safety while loading their crossbows. The French commander was eager to start immediately heedless of a plan. The crossbowmen got cut down like grass to a lawnmower and started to retreat, enraging the commanders -- who ordered the knights to charge over them, and they got bogged down in all the bodies, letting the English cut them down as well.
 * The Battle of Nicopolis in the 15th century, also known as the Crusade of Nicopolis, where the French Knights (does anybody see a pattern here?) disobeyed orders from the crusade leader (King Sigismud of Hungary), who asked them to wait two hours until the Wallachian scouts, led by their prince Mircea the Elder, returned. The French accused Sigismund of wanting to hoard all the glory and charged. While they were successful at first, overrunning the inexperienced infantry that sultan Bayazid used as bait, they were soon attacked by archers and impaled themselves on a row of spikes that the Genre Savvy Bayazid had prepared the night before. A lot of French high nobles died that day. Mircea the Elder, being Genre Savvy himself, knew the battle was lost when he saw the French charge and led his troops away from the field and over the Danube, to defend Wallachia from Bayzid's inevitable counter-attack once he was done slaughtering French knights.
 * Older Than Print: At the Battle of Hastings in 1066 a group of Norman soldiers, fearing that their Magnificent Bastard William the Conquerer (who, by the way, really was a bastard) had died, began to break and run. A detachment from the Saxon shield wall ran after them, and was promptly annihilated when William ripped off his helmet to show the fleeing knights he was alive, rallying them. Then the Normans decided to try a couple of fake retreats. Each time, the Saxons fell for it hook, line and sinker, whittling away their forces bit by bit. Had the Saxons wised up and held their shield wall, William may have had to back down, and the course of English history might have been radically different.
 * It occasionally works the other way, too. At the Battle of Missionary Ridge, the original plan was to stop and regroup, but the soldiers in the front line simply kept going. Considering what happened to start the second phase of Missionary Ridge in the first place, it makes the fact that it ended as a Union victory even more awesome:

"General U.S. Grant: Who ordered those men up the hill?! One of Grant's Aides: No one. They started up without orders. When those fellows get started, all Hell can't stop them!"
 * Encouraged by Sheridan's shouting, his soldiers charge up the hill towards the Confederate guns, shouting "Chickamauga!" as though the name itself were a weapon (the recent battle there was a Union defeat, so it was a cry for vengeance). This reckless advance worries the commanding Union general, Ulysses S. Grant.


 * Another highly famous incident in the American Civil War was at Gettysburg. General Dan Sickles, notorious Jerkass extraordinaire, completely ignored orders on the second day given by General Meade, and moved his entire corp forward out of fortified position to engage the enemy. His entire corp was virtually destroyed in the ensuing battle, though he may have inadvertantly saved the entire battle for the Union--General Longstreet was marching his soldiers for a coordinated attack on the Union left while Ewell attacked the Union right. Sickles' sudden movement spooked Longstreet, causing him to countermarch, and march a different route under heavier cover, wasting several hours in the process, and allowing Union forces to move quickly to counter both attacks.
 * An awful lot of the maneuvers in the American Civil War Battle of First Bull Run/First Manassas had a lot of Leeroy Jenkins moments, especially in the case of General Daniel Tyler, ordering a headlong attack by two of Keyes' regiments on the Confederates on Henry Hill without consulting General McDowell. It didn't go so well. This may have been the result of supreme overconfidence; both sides thought the war would begin and end in a matter of weeks; Lincoln's initial call for troops included only a ninety-day commitment.
 * General George Armstrong Custer may or may not be an example, depending on what interpretation people have of him; in Lost Triumph by Tom Carhart, Custer was a beloved and capable leader, particularly at Gettysburg where his unit prevented the reinforcements from arriving on scene that would have turned Pickett's Charge from a colossal screw up into a gamewinning masterstroke. Custer was a general at 26. It would seem except for Little Big Horn, there's little evidence that his career was EVER marked by a "Leeroy" moment.
 * The Charge of the Light Brigade was a Leeroy Jenkins moment made epic by a well-known poem by Lord Tennyson. Slightly averted by the fact that it was caused more by a failure to communicate than actual impatience, and that although the actual charge was a complete disaster, it did have the lasting effect of convincing the Russians and the rest of the world that British soldiers were completely nuts, especially since their commander was under the impression that he was supposed to make a Heroic Sacrifice and saw no reason to hold back. And then the French Chasseurs d'Afrique pulled a Leeroy Jenkins themselves, broke the Russian line and covered the retreat of the Light Brigade, saving their sorry asses. Earlier that same day there was also the maneuver now known as the Thin Red Line, which basically was when the Russians tried a Leeroy Jenkins of their own and got humiliated for their trouble, by a two-men-deep line of Scotsmen, no less.
 * The same thing happened at the Battle on Minden (1759), when a misunderstood order sent a brigade of British infantry advancing on the French lines, and despite everything the French could throw at them, won the day.
 * Partially subverted at the Battle of Omdurman when the 21st Lancers charged charged what they assumed to be a few hundred dervishes, only to find they'd run into about 2,500 of them. Fully subverted in that they still won, despite being outnumbered >6-1 (of the 400 strong 21st Lancers, 70 men and 120 horses were lost).
 * Horatio Nelson, at the Battle of Copenhagen (1801), had something of a Leeroy Jenkins moment. While leading the advance squadron, several of his ships ran aground and his commanding Admiral ordered him to abandon the assault. While trying to read the signal flags, he purposely put his spyglass to his blind eye, said "I really do not see the signal," kept attacking, and won the battle.
 * This one worked out fairly well though.
 * Admiral Parker knew Nelson would keep fighting as long as he saw a chance to win. He also knew that Nelson would make a Heroic Sacrifice unless ordered to retreat. Finally, Parker couldn't see the damn battle owing to all the gunsmoke in the air; he had no idea what was going on, and he was well aware of it. So he put up flags indicating that Nelson had permission to withdraw if he so chose--tacitly giving permission to remain as well. Nelson interpreted it correctly, and the whole "disobeying orders" thing came up later because it makes the story seem romantic. (Not that the bit with the blind eye helped matters.)
 * Gerhard von Blücher, Prussian marshal during the Napoleonic Wars (the one that saved wellington at Waterloo), was famous for this. His nickname was Marschall Vorwärts (=Marshal Forward).
 * Referenced, of all places, in this article from the Armed Forces Journal by a U.S. Army Captain who said that the phrase perfectly described U.S. attitudes towards advising Iraqi soldiers.
 * At the Battle of Ain Jalut, a Mongol army that really should have known better (since it was a favourite tactic of theirs) charged blindly after some fleeing Mameluke horsemen and were totally destroyed. Especially painful since it was the only Mongol army for about a thousand miles at the time, and had been specifically placed there to keep the Mamelukes in check.
 * How many times has this happened to you: you're playing capture the flag (or some other tag variation), you've just worked out a brilliant stategy, you and your teammates are about to put your plan into action, when -- hey, what the hell? What's he DOING? Didn't anyone tell him about about the brilliant strategy?! They're gonna get him! Ahh! Oh, we are so NOT getting him out of jail.
 * Hitler had this going several ways. He picked on Czechoslovakia, which scared his generals as the Czechs had a fair shot at beating the German army in the condition it was...but got away with it because the rest of Europe abandoned the Czechs and their morale collapsed. He went to war with France and England about two years before his navy and army thought they were ready for it; the army wanted more time to reequip with the Panzer III, and the navy projected a need for about 120 submarines to win the war, but only had 42. He topped it by attacking Russia before he'd knocked England out of the war or worked out how to actually use all that extra industrial output and manpower in occupied Europe, which might have given a him a fair shot at the Russians. He then topped that by declaring war on America just as the Russians started their first round of winter counterattacks, thereby pitting Germany against not one but two enemies it was incapable of defeating.
 * In fact, the Germans had bitten off more than they could chew even before they attacked the USA. As early as 1941, Fritz Todt led a committee of Germany's best industrialists, and they found that unless Germany doubled her industrial output, British and Soviet industrial power would leave her for dead. The entry of the USA into the war just sealed the deal.
 * The Fort Hood Shooting, in which Kimberly Munley (who was praised as a hero by the media) rushed ahead and managed to get herself shot up and had to be bailed out by her partner Mark Todd who shot the shooter 5 times and disarmed him.
 * Hell, terrorism in general: You'll get captured or killed, and more than likely you'll turn more people against your cause than toward it.
 * Inverted in World War Two; isolationists saw America as this. When it became obvious that the Axis Powers would attack America anyway because, ahem, the Axis Powers attacked America, nobody listened to isolationists for over two decades.
 * JNA at Vukovar. Sending tanks into city with no infantry support? If it isn't stupid, I don't know what is...
 * During the English Civil War, King Charles' nephew Prince Rupert became infamous for this. His wing of cavalry would charge, break through the Parliamentary lines - and then keep right on going, often for several miles, chasing a few scattered Roundheads. This worked well enough at Edge Hill, the first major battle of the war, but by the time of Marston Moor and Naseby the Parliamentary armies had learned to just let Rupert's men charge and chase a few of their number down - while the remainder regrouped and went back into a battle which had now lost a third of the Royalist army. This was a large part of the reason why the Royalists were crushed in those two battles, and by extension a major reason why they lost the whole war.
 * The Battle of Adrianople, with the forces of the Fourth Crusade, led by Baldwin of Flanders and Louis of Blois, versus the Bulgarian-Vlakh-Kuman army of tsar Kaloyan, ended like this. Louis of Blois had just recovered from an illness that had left him unable to participate in the Fourth Crusade's conquest of Constantinople, and he was overeager to show his stuff. When the Kuman cavalry broke and ran, Louis charged willy-nilly after them, with Baldwin chasing Louis trying to stop him. The Kumans then encircled them. Louis died defending Baldwin, who was then captured and eventually killed in prison.
 * During World War II, in the midst of the Allied bombing campaigns over Western Europe, a young American pilot by the name of Robin Olds was scouting ahead of a large formation of bombers when he came across a large gaggle of German fighters who were forming up in preperation of interecepting the bombers. Not only did he not contact the rest of his squadron to form up and hit the Germans en masse, he actually mashed his radio key to prevent his wingman from calling out a report on the sighting. He charged headlong into the mass of German fighters, followed by his Wing Man, and the first moment the Germans realized they were not alone in that slice of sky was when the first pilot called that he'd been hit.
 * This actually worked in Olds' favor, if only because the Germans were still trying to form up and get organized. The sky was full of fighters, and only a small number of them were enemies. The rest were confused and panicked friendlies who were dodging around every which way trying to figure out if they were the next target of this phantom attacker.

"At least I have chicken."