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{{trope}}
{{quote|"''Time was you sent a boy off to war. Shootin' someone fixed him right up. But there [[Funny Aneurysm Moment|ain't even no wars no more]], thank you very much Warren Christopher!''"
|'''Moe''', ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]''}}
[[Bob Dylan|How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?]] The world may never know, but one thing is for sure: at the end of one of those roads, he had better show some unfortunate creature the end of the line.
This old tradition of killing as initiation into manhood is at least as old as ancient Sparta (those guys from the movie ''[[
Naturally, every once in a while, either because the society/organization is gender-blind or someone wants to get in on the deadly fun, a woman will go through the same process to mixed reaction or no reaction at all if it were one of those aforementioned gender-blind societies/organizations.
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A variation of this trope is for elite military forces to kill a man (an enemy or even a low ranking ally) as part of initiation. Outside of the distant past or a very few of the small, isolated tribes over half a century ago, it is a [[Discredited Trope]].
Unfortunately, a trope that comes with [[Unfortunate Implications]] in the modern days: if such a rite of passage was justified back in ancient times and still is in some contexts, the trope has now been [[Flanderization|Flanderized]] into a much less noble version, particularly in [[Real Life]], and contends that revelling in violence and deriving pleasure from killing something or someone [[Values Dissonance|is the epitome of manhood]] and the very definition of [[
(The concept of "blooded" versus "green" forces (a continuum, not either/or) is different: killing (or dying) is not required, but you must have remained and functioned with your unit for some time in combat before you start to be regarded as trustworthy.)
Contrast [[Real Women Never Wear Dresses]], [[Badass Pacifist]]. Sometimes used in training in [[The Spartan Way]] (not to be confused with literal Spartan training, which also required this).
{{examples|Examples:}}▼
== Anime and Manga ==
* The anime ''[[Kikaider]]'' uses this concept as a last [[Twist Ending|twist out of left field]]. To "[[Become a Real Boy]]," Jiro ends up becoming capable of killing and committing other evil acts, even if they are for good reasons, due to a fusion of his concience circuit and an evil control circuit.
* In ''[[
* Averted in ''[[Trigun]]''. Killing people is serious freaking business, and the [[Kick the Dog|hallmark]] of characters who are either morally ambiguous or just plain psycho. Even {{spoiler|nonfatally wounding the villain}} is portrayed as a crippling-guilt-inducing act.
* ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'', working on Batman Logic, mostly averts this trope. However, the ''reason'' Kenshin avoids killing is because he was the cause of so many deaths in the past.
** There's another twisted line of thought preventing him from killing, as he's convinced that taking a single life, will turn him into a bloodthirsty killer, and this attitude never changes, even after his master tells him that Shishio wouldn't even be around if Kenshin wasn't so afraid of the "manslayer", who's merely a figment of his imagination, despite this, fate seems to conspire to keep Kenshin from killing anyone.
* ''[[Black Cat (
* In ''[[Naruto]]'', the Hidden Mist village used to be known as the "Bloody Mist" for this reason, as the final exam for pre-Genin under the 4th Mizukage was for students to pair up and fight to the death. The practice ended after the preteen Momochi Zabuza showed up and massacred every one of the students.
* In ''[[Vinland Saga]]'', this trope comes into play when the youngest son of a rich farmer wants to become a man. The farmer's housecarls quote this trope at him and tries to get him to cut down a pair of his father's slaves. The trope is deconstructed because it's readily apparent that the situation isn't particularly 'manly' (the slaves are restrained) and the boy is a bit of a [[Emo Teen]] either way. {{spoiler|When he eventually ''does'' end up killing someone, it's by accident in a fixed duel he was intended to win so the king could accuse his father. He ends up horrified, looking at the man's corpse.}}
== Comic Books ==
* Aversion: [[Batman]] has a strict 'no-killing' policy and his sticking to his principles no matter how much danger it puts him in is seen as proof of his manly character.
** In ''[[All Star Batman and Robin]]'', Batman ([[In Name Only]]) trains Robin by locking him in the Batcave and forcing him to kill rats and bugs for food.
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* In the [[Marvel Universe|Marvel]] [[Alternate Universe]] ''[[Age of Apocalypse]]'', Colossus is shown training young mutants for the fight against Apocalypse, expecting them to kill each other to ensure that only the very best remain.
* In the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]], there are a few comics focusing on the training of the Emperor's Red Guards. Part of this involves partners who have worked together all along killing each other in front of the Emperor to show their loyalty.
* Inverted in ''[[Watchmen (
{{quote|
* [[Secret Six|Catman's]] [[Abusive Parents|abusive big game hunter father]] once forced his son (who was still a little boy then) to shoot a defenseless lion cub. He justified it to his wife using this trope.
* [[The Punisher]]
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== [[Fairy Tales]] ==
* In ''[http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/185.htm The False Prince And The True]'', the king is told that his son was struck, and didn't try to strike back, and is displeased.
{{quote|
'Yes, sire, he had arms; he always carries a dagger in his belt. But when he saw the blood pouring from his face, he went to a corner of the court and began to cry, which was the strangest thing of all.'
On hearing this the king walked to the window and stood for a few minutes with his back to the room, where the company of young men remained silent. Then he came back, his face white and stern.
'I tell you,' he said, 'and it is the solemn truth, that I would rather you had told me that the prince was dead, though he is my only son, than know that he would suffer such an injury without attempting to avenge it. }}
== Film ==
* In the 2006 ''[[
* In ''[[La Femme Nikita]]'' and its American adaptation ''[[Point of No Return]]'', the main character has completed her training as an assassin. Her boss takes her out to dinner to celebrate and then reveals that it's actually a test: she has to kill a target and escape without preparation. The first episode of [[Recycled: the Series|The 1990s Series]] has the same scenario, although it is subverted in that case as Nikita uses her ingenuity to avoid killing anyone (her first on-screen kill occurs a few episodes later with no fanfare, and {{spoiler|by the end of the series she'd grown comfortable with killing to the point of being shown delivering "safety shots" into the bodies of disarmed enemies, a case of a character becoming [[Darker and Edgier]] as a series progresses}}).▼
▲* In the 2006 ''[[Casino Royale (Film)|Casino Royale]]'' it is revealed that secret agents are only promoted to 00 status after assassinating two targets (killing without intention to or in self-defence/heat of battle doesn't apparently count otherwise [[MI 6]] would be loaded with 00 agents). This is also a plot point in the original novel, in which Le Chiffre is [[James Bond (Film)|James Bond]]'s third target; the film suggests the first two targets are Bond's first kills ever, while the books are ambiguous on this point.
▲* In ''[[La Femme Nikita]]'' and its American adaptation ''[[Point of No Return]]'', the main character has completed her training as an assassin. Her boss takes her out to dinner to celebrate and then reveals that it's actually a test: she has to kill a target and escape without preparation. The first episode of [[Recycled the Series|The 1990s Series]] has the same scenario, although it is subverted in that case as Nikita uses her ingenuity to avoid killing anyone (her first on-screen kill occurs a few episodes later with no fanfare, and {{spoiler|by the end of the series she'd grown comfortable with killing to the point of being shown delivering "safety shots" into the bodies of disarmed enemies, a case of a character becoming [[Darker and Edgier]] as a series progresses}}).
* In ''[[Surviving The Game]]'', Gary Busey's character relates a story of a dog his father bought him as a child... and had him kill with his bare hands later to prove himself a man.
* Variation: In ''[[Monsters Ball|Monster's Ball]]'', Hank and his son Sonny are officers who work on Death Row and the story opens as the latter is about to participate in his first "last walk" of a condemned man. (The title refers to the party that used to be thrown the night before an execution.) However, Sonny loses his nerve and vomits during the walk. Hank is humiliated and furious and confronts him the next morning; the fight ends with Sonny committing suicide. The remainder of the film has Hank struggling with this loss (and notably, his own father chalks Sonny's fate up to weakness).
* This is Luigi Largo's philosophy of life in ''[[
** ...but being ''[[Repo!
* ''[[Naked Weapon]]'' features a wide variety of pubescent girls being kidnapped from around the world and sent to a tropical island. After immediately killing anybody who says 'Yes, I wanna go home!', they spend the next
** Which, if one gives it about a half-second of thought, really is a ''monstrously'' wasteful and inefficient way of training assassins, but alas, the [[Rule of Cool]] strikes again...
* In ''[[Dog Soldiers]]'', a potential recruit for the UK special forces gets chewed out for not killing the dog set to track him in a field exercise. Ordered to shoot it after the exercise, he refuses to do so, and would have washed out if a little run-in with werewolves hadn't turned the tables on his callous superior officer.
* Invoked by [[
{{quote|
** Also invoked in the [[Training Montage]]. That ''is'' after all why they were expected to "be a man".
* [[Inglourious Basterds|Lt. Aldo Raine]] puts it pretty succinctly:
{{quote|
* It is shown in ''[[The Bourne Series (
* Lampshaded in ''[[Big Trouble in Little China]]''. Jack is embarrassed by having killed someone only for the first time and lies about it so as not to appear dorky to his male friends, who obviously aren't killers any more than he is.
* ''[[
* [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]]/[[Averted Trope|Averted]] more than once in ''[[Full Metal Jacket]]''. The first death is a [[Despair Event Horizon|despair-driven suicide]]. The other most notable death is when Joker stands over a sniper and debates for some minutes whether to kill her... [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|and then]] [[What the Hell, Hero?|he does]]. [[Captain Obvious|It's an anti-war film.]]
** It makes more sense in context. Said sniper had killed three soldiers, and even tortured two of them with non-lethal shots to lure the others into her range. After she was shot the first time, she was alive, but was obviously helpless, asking them to kill her. While all the other soldiers want'd to leave her for the rats to eat her, for revenge, Joker took her out of her misery.
* [[Harrison Ford|Dolerhyde]] in ''[[Cowboys and Aliens (
== Literature ==
* ''[[The Red Badge of Courage]]''.
* Many gangster stories have the characters "make their bones" by killing two men. ''[[
{{quote|
* Subverted in the [[Discworld]] novel ''[[
** But played straight in that the student is meant to think it's a real person - it is, after all, the final exam for the ''Assassin's'' Guild. While it's true that over the course of his lifetime an Assassin may only be sent out on eight or so commissions, if an Assassin chokes on one of these extremely few commissions, we're looking at loss of revenue, loss of business, and, worst of all, loss of reputation, which will result in further consequences A and B.
*** Not to mention loss of breathing.
* In the ''[[
* In ''Dark Light'', the second book in the Engines of Light Trilogy by [[Ken MacLeod]], the characters come to the planet Rawliston, where the population is divided into three cultures: "Christians" (Post-Industrial Revolution Victorians), "Heathens" (Autochthonous people with a cottage craft system capable of producing highly complex creations), and "Savages" (Hunter Gatherers who live on the outskirts of the actual civilization). The Heathens have a sort of gender-caste system, where gender is not determined by actual sex, but by conduct and career. The ritual to "become a man" involves the Heathens going out and killing a "Savage".
** The gender-caste system is not unknown in real life - the Amerindian nations, for example, permitted 'berdaches' - usually men who lived as women, but occasionally women living as men. The whole business has been appropriated by the LGBT movement, but there's evidence that it was less simplistic than that.
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* The Marines in ''[[Jarhead]]'' (including the author) are stoked up on the prospect of their first kill, which is directly compared to losing their virginity and becoming a real man.
* Deconstructed in the [[Vorkosigan Saga]] novel ''Brothers in Arms'', when Galen tries to get Mark to kill Miles and Galeni:
{{quote|
'''Miles:''' No, you don't. Most people go through their whole lives without killing anybody. False argument. }}
**Of course all the Vorkosigans including Grandpa, Daddy, ''Mommy'' and Miles himself have killed quite a few people and Mark himself eventually will get in on the family tradition.
* In ''[[White Teeth]]'' by [[Zadie Smith]], at the end of the Second World War, Samad insists that Archie must prove himself by executing the sick Nazi doctor they have captured. Archie disappears into the bushes with the prisoner. A shot is heard...
* Subverted somewhat in ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', in the paragraph where Faramir explains how he views the war against Sauron, not for glory but only to defend the Free peoples against a tyrant who wish to devour everything.
* Richard Marcinko's ''Rogue Warrior'' novels, allegedly based upon or inspired by his real-life Navy SEAL experiences, include references to missions being set up in such a way that new recruits will be forced to kill as a final test of ability.
* The short story "Duck Hunt" by Joe R. Lansdale plays this for horror. A nebbish comic book loving scrawny teenager is forced to go on a duck hunt with his father and his father's friends to make him more of a man. {{spoiler|After killing a helpless prisoner and drinking his blood along with the blood of the ducks}} the teen starts acting "manly" and even cracks a joke about {{spoiler|killing a man in cold blood}}. The other men laugh in good natured comraderie and promise to get him laid that night.
* This is the belief of the Taya (a race of [[Multi
* ''Casino Royale'', the first [[James Bond (
== Live Action TV ==▼
* ''[[Night Gallery]]'' episode "Clean Kills". A wealthy hunter tries to force his son to kill a deer by threatening to disinherit him.
* ''[[Generation Kill]]'' mentions this
{{quote|
** Unfortunately for Person, after this "Fruity Rudy" happened to him.
* Stated outright by Head Six in the ''[[Battlestar Galactica
* In ''[[
* Inverted in ''[[
** There is also the Episode "Probie" were McGee shoots someone, apparently for the first time, and spends the rest of the episode feeling horribly guilty about it. (Due in part to doubt as to whether he shot the right person.)
** Later in the series, it's revealed that an early form of the agency, the NIS, sent probies on kill assignments to test their mettle (similar to the "red test" featured in ''[[Series/Chuck|Chuck]]'').
* On ''[[Silver Spoons]]'' Ricky's grandfather takes him out hunting to "make a man" out of him.
* In ''[[
** Mr. Eko also has this trope in his back story. When he was a young boy, his brother was told to kill an old man of their village by a gang of drug smugglers. When his brother can't do it, {{spoiler|Eko kills the man without hesitation and is taken by the gang}}. The implication is that the smugglers want to take the innocence of children by making them kill.
* ''[[Chuck]]'' uses this as a plot-point, where the titular Chuck is required to kill a target for the first time in order to become a full agent.{{spoiler|It's also subverted with Sarah, his CIA handler/love interest, who says that if Chuck goes through with it, he won't be the same man he fell in love with. Chuck ends up killing for the first time to save her life, but still retains his reluctance to use deadly force after.}}
** {{spoiler|[[Disney Death|Or so he thought.]]}}
** Sarah's first kill is also depicted in this fashion.
* Averted interestingly in ''[[The Pacific]]'' with Eugene's
* During the third season of ''[[Alias (TV series)|Alias]]'', details are learned about Sydney Bristow's "lost two years" during which she went deep undercover as an assassin named Julia Thorne. Sydney later arranged to have her memories of the mission suppressed, in part due to some of her actions which included killing an unarmed prisoner in order to prover her loyalty to her "new" employers (Sydney's first kill as an agent is never depicted or mentioned on screen, but is depicted in one of the spin-off prequel novels and is basically shrugged off by the character. On screen, her first confirmed kill actually doesn't occur until the first episode of Season 2).
* In the ''[[
** Also subverted in the 2007 episode ''The Doctor's Daughter'' in which the Doctor, who has taken many lives in his time, gets into a philosophical debate with Jenny (his cloned daughter) over the morals of being a soldier and later, when he has the opportunity to gun down a villain, describes himself as the man "who never would".
* Stated by Theon Greyjoy in ''A Golden Crown'' episode of the ''[[
* The 2010 updating of ''[[Nikita (TV series)|Nikita]]'' establishes that for Division recruits to be promoted to field agent status (and, ultimately, survive their training) they must commit an assigned kill. The trope is subverted when Alex, Nikita's mole in Division, expresses that she's willing to do this to maintain her cover, but Nikita tries to avoid this in order to prevent her from becoming another Nikita. Ultimately, {{spoiler|Alex does kill for the first time, but it is accidental, and the victim is framed post-mortem to make it appear as if he was the mole within Division, thereby winning Alex a bye on the actual kill test scenario.}}
* On the TV series ''[[Nanny]]'', one of the aristocratic families Barbara worked for had a grandfather who refused to take part in blood sports. The reason was that his father felt he needed toughening up and so, on the boy's first hunt, he cut the stag open and shoved the boy inside the carcass. He never again.
* On ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' the Winchesters on one hand clearly believe
== Video Games ==
* According to the novels, Ghosts in ''[[
▲* According to the novels, Ghosts in ''[[Starcraft]]'' have to kill someone as final test. It's less a test about being a man, and more about efficiency (the most important Ghosts happen to be female anyway).
** ''Liberty's Crusade'' has Kerrigan explain this in detail: a soldier pointed a gun at the head of one of her fellow trainees and she had to kill the soldier before he could pull the trigger. Mike immediately makes a connection between it and the death of Raynor's daughter, causing Kerrigan to lapse into [[Heroic BSOD]] on the spot.
** In ''Nova'', the titular character (who is arguably a more powerful telepath and telekinetic than Kerrigan) gets recruited into the Ghost program (not that she has a choice, but she actually wants it), and her first task is to eliminate the man who ordered her family killed. She does it with no small satisfaction. After this mission, she is mind-wiped, like all Ghosts. Subverted in that she has killed before (well, she mind-controlled a guy to shoot his boss, but that still counts).
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== Web Comics ==
* ''[[
▲* ''[[Drow Tales]]'' has [http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?order=chapters&id=359 a brutal display] of the protagonist being ordered to kill a classmate if she wishes to be recognized as a daughter and take her place as heir.
* Thomil of [[Juathuur]] is considered spineless by other characters (especially Sojueilo) because he is a healer.
* ''[[
* ''[[Nerf This]]'' has just had a character say almost the exact thing:
{{quote|
* Meta example: a disturbing number of ''[[
== Web Original ==
* Billy had to do this in ''[[Dr.
▲* Billy had to do this in ''[[Dr. Horribles Sing Along Blog]]'' before he could enter into the Evil League of Evil.
** Mildly played with, in that he would presumably been accepted for a REALLY good robbery, or just something threatening. Only failure at that caused murder to be necessary. Possibly his own.
== Western Animation ==
* Despite the fact that [[Negative Continuity]] pretty much undoes every rite-of-passage he's ever gone through, Bobby Hill on ''[[King of the Hill]]'' had to kill a deer to become a man. It looked like he wouldn't get a chance since the limit for hunting licenses had been reached for the year and he would be left behind by his friends who all have a kill of their own (even Kahn JR.) but fortune smiles on him when he accidentally runs a deer over during a driving lesson Hank was giving him.
** On the other hand, the roadkill incident may simply be a technicality for Hank, who had already accepted Bobby when he refused to take what they both saw as a cheap shot.
* A comedic take on this was the topic of an episode of ''[[
* In ''[[The Simpsons (
* In ''[[
* On ''[[Taz-Mania]]'', Francis X. Bushlad wants to win his manhood (and the right to wear trousers) by killing a Tasmanian devil. Subverted in that Francis doesn't ''have'' to do this; there are other and more peaceful ways to attain manhood in his tribe.
** His other choices were performing a hostile takeover of a Fortune 500 company or accumulating a stock portfolio with a return of no less than 36% a year.
* In the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "Volcano", Stan's Uncle Jimbo takes the boys hunting, and is shocked when Stan doesn't want to kill the rabbit he has a chance to shoot. Jimbo is both surprised and disappointed in Stan, and Eric mercilessly teases him for it. Kenny, on the other hand, has no problems either shooting a whole magazine worth of ammo into a deer, or drinking the gasoline for the fishing boat, which impresses Jimbo enough to label him a "dirty little bastard". At the end, Stan finally scores a
* Averted in the finale of ''[[
* In ''[[Rocko's Modern Life]]'', the passage into manhood for the Wolfe family was to bring an elk home for dinner. Heffer, naturally, misunderstands things and ends up bringing home an elk girl he met at a club and fell in love with.
== Real Life ==
* Prior to the ban on lion-hunting, a Massai boy was to spear a lion as part of his rite-of-passage shortly before his circumcision. Some still do, not that it is actively encouraged anymore.
** Though it is referenced in a Star Trek TOS novel in which Uhura spears a robotic lion in a simulated safari as a rite of passage.
* Some tribes have to kill a deer or antelope to complete the passage into manhood.
* American President [[
** In
** Republican National Committee leadership debate question: How many guns do you have? First three people: None. Guy: Four. Lady: Nineteen. [[The Daily Show
▲** Republican National Committee leadership debate question: How many guns do you have? First three people: None. Guy: Four. Lady: Nineteen. [[The Daily Show (TV)|Jon Stewart]]: Ladies and gentlemen, your new GNC president!
* In urban legend, any number of elite special forces teams (Green Berets, SAS, the Nazi SS, etc.) required as a final test of loyalty that the candidate kill a spouse, family member, or other significant personal relation. In a widely-circulated joke based on this tale, 3 agents are candidates, one has a fiance, one is a newlywed, and one has been married for ten years. [[Rule of Three|The first two candidates chicken out and can't pull the trigger]], while the third says "[[Secret Test of Character|The gun had blanks]], so I had to beat her to death."
** There's an inversion in one variant: it concerns either the CIA or FBI, and Candidate #3 is a woman who has to kill her husband. Yes, the gun has blanks; yes, she beats him to death.
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* Apparently one reason the Zulu people were so feared in battle was that they had entire regiments of young soldiers, who were not allowed to have sex until they'd killed a man.
** Some have interpreted that as not being allowed to be ''married'' and that fooling around was permitted.
* The mining fields of [[The Wild West]], as [[Mark Twain]] describes in the autobiographical book 'Roughing It': "... (I)n a new mining district the rough element predominates, and a person is not respected until he has "killed his man." That was the very expression used. If an unknown individual arrived, they did not inquire if he was capable, honest, industrious,
* Subversion: Among some tribal peoples it is the women who are considered the natural diplomats because they are given immunity from feuds and can thus cross no-mans-land. The Nuer however were known for a pan-tribal guild of "leopard skin men" who acted as magistrates and diplomat. In other words they considered that while a real man can be a killer some of the most respected men were specifically for the prevention of killing.
* Firemen, Hazmats, and other EMTs are a subversion as they are required to have an extraordinary amount of what we call manliness; risk tolerance, and something of a paramilitaristic outlook. But they are there to save lives.
** Likewise policemen may have to kill in the course of their duties, but if well-trained they will take pride in taking a suspect alive even when the suspect is a mass-murderer on a spree (such as at the end of the 2018 [[w:Toronto van attack|Toronto van attack]]).
* [[w:Clipper|Clipper]] ship captains and crew were of course very manly but killing was not part of their duties, although they might run across pirates. Also, some "Baltimore Clippers" carried slaves from Africa to North America, and most "China Clippers" carried opium, both of which killed as surely as if the sailors had slit people's throats.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Always Male]]
[[Category:Masculinity Tropes]]
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[[Category:Double Standard]]
[[Category:Plots]]
[[Category:
{{DEFAULTSORT:Real Man Is a Killer, A}}
▲[[Category:Trope]]
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