Blood Knight: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'''s Yusuke Urameshi. Not to mention Jin and Chu, who are equally fight-happy (unless it's a cute girl for Chu, at least) Of course, Jin, Chu, and Yusuke quickly become best buddies.

** Younger Toguro is definitely one as well as a {{spoiler|[[Death Seeker]].}}

* [[Akagi]] doesn't just live for fighting, he would gladly die for a good fight, and believes that death is the essence of fighting. Only replace "fighting" with "mahjong".

* Kotarō from ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' is a self-admitted example... mostly because, as he admits, fighting is really the only thing he knows. Once he does a [[Heel Face Turn]] this is turned more into a love of testing his strength, while fighting for his friends.

*** Of course, this is in no small part due to the fact that he's partially composed of cells from the aforementioned Saiyans.

* A few ''[[Gundam]]'' characters could be mentioned, as famous [[Mobile Suit Gundam|Char Aznable]] and [[Mobile Suit Gundam Wing|Zechs Merquise]] are dedicated warriors, finding their only true purpose in battle. Even better examples are [[Mobile Fighter G Gundam|Domon Kasshu and Master Asia]], though they don't seek to kill their opponents, their main purpose to live is to fight and therefore show their feelings.

** The brutal Ali Al-Saachez of ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 00|Gundam 00]]'' is one of the [[Complete Monster|most evil examples]] of this trope imaginable. He has no qualms against admitting that all he lives for is war, and fears the day that men like him will no longer be necessary. During {{spoiler|his final battle with Lockon Stratos}}, he is asked why he carried out a series of bombings in Ireland some years ago. His response? "Because I'm a mercenary, [[It's What I Do|it's what I do!]]''

** {{spoiler|[[Enfant Terrible|Desil Galette]]}} from ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam AGE|Gundam Age]]'' is quite possibly '''[[Up to Eleven|WORSE]]''' than Ali when it comes to this trope. He believes that wars are fun and that the soldiers and mobile suits are his toys. During episode 14, Flit asks {{spoiler|why he killed Yurin.}} He admits that there was no reason; to {{spoiler|Desil}}, ''it just meant that he lost another toy.''

* Emil Blonsky from the 2008 ''[[The Incredible Hulk (film)|The Incredible Hulk]]'': held off being promoted out of the battlefield, despite his aging body (looking forty-five when he's thirty-nine) for the sheer joy of being a "fighter", and when the opportunity to fight a foe as formidable as the Hulk arose, was willing to have himself transformed into a [[Super Soldier]] and even an outright abomination (no pun intended) to be able to have a "real fight".

* Brad Whitaker, chief villain of ''[[The Living Daylights]]'' is somewhat of a slight subversion: He's obsessed with warfare and weaponry, his house practically a museum full of the stuff, is the leader of a mercenary company, and calls himself a "soldier". However, he flunked out of West Point for cheating, and in general is really only bumming around in Tangier.

* ''[[Battle Royale]]'' brought out true intentions of students who really gained pleasure from killing their peers.

* ''[[Deathwatch (2002 film)|Deathwatch 2002]]'' has Quinn, the fur wearing psychopath who's first focus shot is him with his newly found spiked trench club. He also marks one of the few times a revolver bayonet is seen in cinema. Also, he collects scalps, making the origins of his furs somewhat questionable. He also remarked that he killed a man whilst on holiday in Blackpool. The film is essentially a horror version of Journey's end, set in a [[WW 1]] trench.

* All the Brothers in J.R. Ward's ''[[Black Dagger Brotherhood]]'' series fit this trope. They're elite vampire warriors bred to protect the vampire race from vampire hunters and they '''love''' their job. All of them, but especially Zsadist, live for fighting and killing—until they meet a good woman because [[Love Redeems]].

* In [[Alan Dean Foster]]'s ''The Damned'' novels, [[Planet of Hats|all of humanity]] were Blood Knights. It turns out that the humans only fought each other because they lacked an external enemy to fight. When such an enemy presented itself...

* Ralan Bek from Raymond Feist's ''[[Dark War]]'' trilogy. Of course, since it turns out he is really {{spoiler|the Dasati God of War.}}

** The Dasati themselves pretty much have this, taken to [[Exclusively Evil]] extremes, as their hat.

* John Watson from BBC's ''[[Sherlock]]'' is this. Lampshaded by Mycroft when they first meet;

{{quote|'''Mycroft''': You're not haunted by the war, Dr Watson...you ''miss'' it! Welcome back!}}

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* In [[The Real Man]], pretty much every single Real Man is this.

** The Orcs/Orks were literally ''bred'' for war and will gleefully fight anything, themselves included, if there's a good fight to be had from it.

** Worshippers of Khorne qualify partially -- [[Psycho for Hire|but their main interest is spilling blood and spreading death and mayhem in Khorne's name]], not in the quality of the battle. After all, "Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows, as long as it flows"—they've been known to kill ''themselves'' if they run out of other victims to kill. The appropriately named Skulltaker, the highest ranking of Khorne's lesser daemons is this trope personified. His sole reason of existence is to look for the greatest warriors and fight them in hand-to-hand combat. If he wins (and he usually does) he'll rip the foe's head off and attach the skull into his cloak.

** Plenty of Space Marine chapters have this as their quirk. [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|The Manticores, Carcharodons, Executioners, Motifcators, Space Wolves (some of them, at least), Knights of Blood, Flesh Tearers and Angels Encarmine,]] to name but a few.

** Witch Elves of the Dark Elves are this trope, as well as Khainites in general. As the brides of the Elvin god of war, murder, pain, suffering, and blood shed in general, they go in a drug induced frenzy and rush in with a furry of attacks. Oh, and to make sure they kill something, they use poisons. Even other khainites are not too terribly sane as their khaineite rule prevents none chainite charecters from joining them as no one trusts them.

** The Elves of the Valaes Tairn in the ''[[Eberron]]'' setting.

** The Battleragers in the ''Forgotten Realms'' setting are dwarves enamoured with battle. While they also protect their home clanholds, the fight is what they desire most, and they run towards it with a fervent glee that give even drow pause.

== Video Games ==

* [[Sonic the Hedgehog]] might be considered a blood-knight himself as well, as he's "the guy who loves adventure." In other words, he ''loves'' the thrill of cheating death many times over and facing impossible odds to give him the adrenaline rush he always wanted. This is why he has Dr. Eggman as his nemesis, because Sonic and his addiction to combat and danger wouldn't be complete without that overweight mad-scientist and his robot-armies feeding as much of his suicidal-tendencies as possible.

* Karel from ''[[Fire Emblem Elibe|Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword]]'' is a wandering, half-crazed swordsman whose only goal is to seek out the most powerful fighters on the continent and cut them into tiny little pieces. He joins the protagonists only because he's curious as to whether they'll become stronger (with the implication that he'll kill them if he likes what he sees), killed his parents, threatens to kill both [http://www.rpgclassics.com/shrines/gba/fe7/karel_karla.shtml his younger sister Karla] and [http://www.rpgclassics.com/shrines/gba/fe7/guy_karel.shtml his apprentice Guy] if they ever grow strong enough to make for a decent fight, and [http://www.rpgclassics.com/shrines/gba/fe7/dart_karel.shtml bribes Dart the pirate] for gossip about the toughest fighters in the land, only to discover he's already beaten them all. This characterization actually came about as a result of Karel's appearance in the previous game, ''Sword of Seals'' (which follows ''Blazing Sword'' chronologically). The designers wanted the young Karel to contrast the saintly [[Warrior Poet]] personality he sported in the latter game as much as possible. It's implied that he was mellowed by the death of Karla to illness during the timeskip between the two games—he finally found an opponent he couldn't defeat with strength alone.

** He more or less flat-out states this with his dying words. "Death cannot be bested with a sword... My skills are not yet honed to such a level. I should take my leave of this battle."

* The Channel 4 News Team in the browser-based MMO ''[[Urban Dead]]''. They're usually rather polite to other survivors though, focusing on zombies, and are responsible for many of the notable survivor victories in the game, so they may count as [[Proud Warrior Race Guy]]s instead.

** Many PKer groups have this as their schtick as well.

* Mitsurugi from ''[[Soul Series|Soulcalibur]]''. While he initially seeks Soul Edge in the hopes that the sword will make him powerful enough to defeat a rifle, he ends up strong enough to do so anyway, so he just keeps fighting for the sake of fighting. Even in his ''Soulcalibur IV'' ending, when offered the option to absorb the power of the [[Big Bad]], he ignores it, because he says: "I don't need it."

** In his backstory, it's revealed that Mitsurugi used to deliberately offer his services to vastly outnumbered armies so that he could fight as many foes as possible.

** Actually, most of the assassins in the series seem to be Blood Knights. Death Metal, Dr. Peace, Destroyman, Holly Summers, Harvey Moiseiwitsch Volodarskii, Speed Buster, Bad Girl, Matt Helms, Cole Walsh, Ryuji, Margaret Moonlight and possibly even Henry seem to greatly enjoy battle and killing to perverse ends.

* Sword Dancers in the ''[[Tales (series)]]'' are like this. They only exist to fight (but not kill [[Mons|unless they're fighting for]] fellow Blood Knight [[Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World|Emil Castaginer]]) strong opponents.

* Adell from the ''[[Disgaea]]'' series qualifies as well. He's more of the cheerful sort that only kills when he has to tough (though his chief target certainly deserves it).

** {{spoiler|Super Hero Aurum from ''[[Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice]]'' spent 200 years raising an Overlord just so he would have a worthy opponent to fight.}}

** Quite a lot of the soldier characters in the ''[[Metal Gear]]'' series qualify, actually. Other than Big Boss, Solid Snake, and Raiden, there is also Gray Fox, Olga Gurlukovich, several of the FOXHOUND members, and possibly Solidus Snake.

*** The Boss claims to be a blood knight as well, but it seems her {{spoiler|trip to space}} and {{spoiler|assassination of her own lover}} made her want to unite the world rather than fight it. Still, whether she is acting or not, she says she wants to make {{spoiler|her final fight with Naked Snake}} the "best ten minutes" of her life.

* Ubel in ''[[Nintendo Wars|Battalion Wars]]'', somewhat. He serves Xylvania at least partly for the... [[For the Evulz|entertainment value]]. Interestingly, he does support both [[Big Bad|Kaiser Vlad]] and Ingrid as a dim but loyal little brother figure, whose main ambition is to be "governator", rather than a kaiser himself.

* Aran Ryan from the Wii version of ''[[Punch-Out!!]]''. He even hits himself between rounds.

** In [[Mass Effect 2|the sequel]], Garrus has shades of this, though he keeps up certain standards:

{{quote|'''Garrus''': Hospitals aren't fun to fight through.

'''Garrus''': Gardens, electronics shops. Antique stores, but only if they're classy. }}

** The third game has Kai Leng, a [[Canon Immigrant]] from the novels. His back-story is that he enlisted in the military at age 16 using false credentials, and made it as far as N7 - the same program that produced Shepard and Anderson - before showing his true colors in a bar fight. He was discharged and thrown in jail, only to be broken out by the Illusive Man, who put him to work as an assassin.

* Sgt. Avitus from ''[[Dawn of War]] 2''. "He wields his wrath as his most powerful weapon". Granted, the 100-caliber heavy machine gun probably helps.

* According to Master Xehanort's reports in ''[[Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep]]'', this is one reason that the Keyblade War got so bad. Every Blood Knight in the universe flocked to it and started fighting both sides indiscriminately.

** This may be a common trait with Protoss. The Zealots seem to be using melee weapons only because it's more 'honourable' and gives them a better battle, for instance. Some Protoss in the second game say that they are looking forward to doing battle with Raynor's forces.

* ''[[Legacy of Kain]]'': Kain has shades of this. He certainly seems to be [[Large Ham|enjoying himself]] when he shouts out his battle cry after impaling an opponent.

* [[wikipedia:Khalid ibn al-Walid|Khalid ibn al-Walid]], one of best military commanders period, (as he is among the few historical generals who ''never'' lost a battle), pretty much qualifies. According to A.I. Akram, one of the motivation for his conversion to Islam is because the Muslims of that time were busy conducting military campaigns across Arabia and he felt that his missing out the glory. Somewhat of a [[Death Seeker]] too, considering that he spent his last days lamenting that he will die of old age instead of battle.

* While this may be apocryphal, there is a story that Frederick the Great turned into this during battle, deliberately cutting himself and working himself into a frenzy.

* Walter Cowan, Royal Navy. Commanded a battleship at Jutland, and loved war so much he spent his leave periods ''in the trenches on the Western Front''. When the Armistice was signed, he ''cried.'' Retired as a Rear Admiral. In WW2, despite being well over age (he was in his ''seventies''), he joined the British Army in Africa and fought against the Italians. Captured when trying to SINGLE-HANDEDLY ASSAULT A TANK WITH HIS REVOLVER, he was repatriated by his enemies as an act of mercy (because of his age) and immediately tried to join the Commandos.

* Bernard Freyberg VC, given the habits that caused Winston Churchill to call him "the Salamander" (always in the fire).