Child Soldiers: Difference between revisions

[[File:g00childsoldiers.jpg|link=Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (Anime)|right|''"We fight this battle not for ourselves, but for our children, and our children's children, which is why I'm forming a children's brigade."'' --[[Futurama|Zapp]] [[General Failure|Brannigan]]]

Compare [[Little Miss Badass]], [[Creepy Child]], [[Cute Bruiser]], [[Enfante Terrible]], [[Kid Samurai]], [[New Meat]], [[Young Gun]], [[Recruit Teenagers With Attitude]]. The [[Shell Shocked Senior]] may actually be a high-school senior.

Contrast [[Falling Into the Cockpit]], which usually implies no former military experience. See [[Plucky Middie]] for the naval version. See also [[Raised By Orcs]] for cultures that use ''their enemies'' children this way.

** This is apparently [[Truth in Television]], which is why many child soldiers are from the Middle East in anime. ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (Anime)|Gundam 00]]'' also uses this and ''[[Black Lagoon]]'' made a reference to it.

** The pilots in ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam Wing (Anime)|Gundam Wing]]'' were all 15 at the start of the series, but the most extreme case is Trowa, who (according to ''[[All There in the Manual|Episode Zero]]'') was picked up by mercenaries after spending the first few years of his life completely alone, and thus has been a soldier since literally before he was able to talk. The show's protagonist Heero has many similarities to Sousuke Sagara (mentioned above) such that many consider Sousuke to be an [[Expy]].

** Setsuna F. Seiei (pictured fourth from left) in ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (Anime)|Gundam 00]]'' was brainwashed by and fought for religious extremists in the Middle East some years younger than ten. Being sixteen in the series proper, he's still older than most Gundam teen leads: Usso Eving in ''[[Mobile Suit Victory Gundam (Anime)|Victory Gundam]]'' is the youngest Gundam pilot at 13.

** In ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED (Anime)|Gundam SEED]]'' and ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny (Anime)|Gundam SEED Destiny]]'' the same thing applies with most of the main cast, heroic ''and'' antagonistic being in their teens. Although in this case, most of the child soldiers actually volunteered to fight for their countries; many of them soon realized that they bit off far more than they could chew, though.

** Most blatant example: ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (Anime)|Gundam ZZ]]'''s Elpeo Puru. A ten year old Newtype girl trained for combat in a prototype war machine, mentally conditioned to focus on the pilot of the Gundam (this backfired: she focused on him all right, but her obsession became affection and she only wanted to be his little sister). Then it's revealed that they cloned her at least a dozen times and treated the resultant girls as equipment rather than people, nothing more than pilots who were to obey their commander and fight whomever he ordered.

** Decil Galette of ''[[Gundam AGE]]'' is one of the most [[Enfante Terrible|revoltingly evil]] examples of this ever created, beinga seven year old boy who joined the army because it gave him the chance to kill people. By the Second Generation he's more or less grown up into an [[Expy]] of [[Gundam 00|Ali Al-Saachez]] and [[Zeta Gundam|Yazan Gable]], the franchise's two defining [[Psycho for Hire|Psychos For Hire]].

** Mangaka Masashi Kishimoto is queasy about actually killing off members of his young protagonist set outright (aside from [[Disney Death|feints]], [[Death By Flashback|flashbacks]], and [[Christmas Cake|characters over 25]]), but has no such qualms about having enemy shinobi bite the dust. Fair enough... [[Fridge Logic|up until you realize]] that all of Orochimaru's non-filler Quirky Miniboss Squads, minus Kabuto, are no older than the junior-high-aged protagonists when they die horribly.

* Duel Academy students in ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh GX]]'' -- what do you expect when your weapon is a children's collectible card game? This doesn't stop their principal from [[Adults Are Useless|feeling terrible about putting the fate of the world in the hands of teenagers]].

* ''[[Gun Buster]]'' has a bunch of high-school kids charged with piloting the [[Humongous Mecha]] which will defend the Earth. In fact, the early parts play out more like a sports movie as competitors vie to get "on the team".

* In ''[[One Piece (Manga)|One Piece]]'', during [[Ax Crazy|Donquixote Doflamingo's]] speech about [[Might Makes Right|justice]] during the Marineford Arc, when he gets to his "Children who never knew peace" part, we see a couple of these.

* The oldest member of the [[So Ra No wo To|1121st Helvetian Tank Platoon]] is 18 years old. The youngest is 14.

* Xavin the Super Skrull in training from ''[[Runaways (Comic Book)|Runaways]]'' thinks of herself like this, but based on the flashbacks to his training on her homeworld it seems like he has never really seen combat and only undergone Super Skrull basic training.

** In [[Kick-Ass (Film)|the movie]], {{spoiler|her mother is really dead, so she returns to a normal life - probably devoid of bullies, but that's a detail - with just Dave as a guardian.}}

* A particularly ridiculous version is the ''[[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]]'' fanfiction series about [[Marissa Picard (Fanfic)|Marissa Picard]], in which a twelve-year-old is given command of the Enterprise saucer section, and does so well with it that she is permanently promoted to Ensign (not acting, like Wesley Crusher at 16). She starts up a "Kids' Crew" organization that is basically a shadow government for starships, in which children, none of whom seem to be over 12, can take over the running of a ship if its senior crew are incapacitated. Their ranks are acting, but so long as they're still 'activated' they can tell any properly commissioned officer what to do. Few of the adults over whose heads they jump seem to mind, and those that do quite reasonably resent it are depicted as idiots.

* In ''[[Exoria (Fanfic)|Exoria]]'', Hylian Joint Intelligence is revealed to have hijacked the Spencer Welfare Program, an initiative designed to raise and educate orphaned children so they can serve the government when then grow up. Joint Intelligence keeps tabs on the program to search for candidates for the intelligence agency, and provide them underage military training covertly. Agent Link became an exceedingly young agent of Joint Intelligence this way. On one hand, Link doesn't seem to be too badly off with this upbringing, but Princess Zelda clearly disapproves, and, given the story's narrative slant, it's too early to tell how this will come back to bite Link in the ass.

* Tabitha, as portrayed in the [[Zero no Tsukaima (Light Novel)|Zero no Tsukaima]] fics [[Points of Familiarity (Fanfic)|Points of Familiarity]] and [[The Hill of Swords (Fanfic)|The Hill of Swords]], is one by dint of her [[Evil Uncle]] sending her on impossible missions in the hope of getting her killed. She persists in disappointing him.

* Brutally Deconstructed during the ''[[Tamers Forever Series (Fanfic)|Tamers Forever Series]]''

* Again, this is a major premise of Naruto, so it naturally comes up in the Naruto/Justice League Crossover [[Connecting the Dots (Fanfic)|"Connecting the Dots"]]. The principled Justice League is horrified to discover there is a whole dimension of child assassins, even though Flash points out that the League employs plenty of teenagers.

* The Cutie Mark Crusaders officially become ones in chapter 16 of ''[[Ace Combat the Equestrian War (Fanfic)|Ace Combat: The Equestrian War]]''. To their credit, they actually ''want'' to fight the griffins and they helped in defending Ponyville ealier.

* [[The Servants of Ungoliant (Fanfic)|Darklanders]] that serve as Ungoliant's soldiers are inclined to be teenagers and young adults. Individuals older than twenty-six are relatively uncommon.

* It was the plot of ''[[Toys (Film)|Toys]]''. {{spoiler|What else was Leland going to do with the kids?}}

* Implied a bit in ''[[Transformers (Film)|Transformers]]''. Between mannerisms and personality, Bumblebee seems to be in the Cybertronian analogue of his mid-teens, and the Twins give the distinct impression of being the equivalent of twelve. They are, of course, probably older than most human civilizations, but they're young for their species.

* The [[Honor Harrington (Literature)|Honor Harrington]] novels have an inversion of sorts, where due to the effects of Prolong (a lifespan-increasing treatment), freshly graduated soldiers will often still look like <s> preteens</s> young teenagers - but are actually in their thirties or forties. This produces some dissonance when they meet societies that haven't had access to the treatment.

* The entire main cast of ''[[Animorphs (Literature)|Animorphs]]''.

* In ''[[Who Fears Death (Literature)|Who Fears Death]]'' this is part of Mwita's background.

* Latooni, Seolla, Arado, and Princess Shine from ''[[Super Robot Wars]]''. The first three are [[Tyke Bomb|Tykebombs]], while the fourth is a [[Everything's Better With Princesses|princess]] who isn't ''technically'' enlisted, and is simply allowed to fight alongside the other heroes to protect her [[The Kingdom|Kingdom]].

** Also, Mihiro Ardygun in ''[[Super Robot Wars W]]'', who co-pilots the Valhawk with her older brother (himself 16) at the age of 10. {{spoiler|During the [[Time Skip]], while her brother was missing, she took over piloting duties full-time.}} Though not a soldier ''officially'', she does fight on behalf of a government organization that does include several soldiers, including the aforementioned child soldiers from ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam Wing (Anime)|Gundam Wing]]'' and ''[[Full Metal Panic]]''.

* What's a young girl in a pretty white dress doing as one of the top three generals in ''[[Chrono Cross (Video Game)|Chrono Cross]]''? At least you can say the other kids making up the party weren't inducted into the army, what with growing up in the streets as a thief, swinging an oar, fishing, or being abandoned in the woods at 3 with only an axe and [[Cute Bruiser|the highest strength score in the game]] to survive.

* Some of the backstory for the ''[[Crusader (Video Game)|Crusader]]'' games indicates the Silencer Corps (of whom the main character was a member) prospects are identified through mandatory testing on adolescents. It's also hinted that it's no so much physical prowess they're looking for as it is psychological suitability...

* ''[[Fallout 3 (Video Game)|Fallout 3]]'', while not exactly soldiers the children who live in little lamplight are all well armed little nutjobs. You can even sell them guns, ammo, and drugs. And thermonuclear devices.

* In ''[[Final Fantasy VII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VII]]'', no one in the game seems to consider the idea of a fourteen year old Cloud Strife joining the Shinra Army unusual (Zack Fair also joined in a similarly young age). And then there's people like Sephiroth, Shelke, and Cissne who started their fighting careers as mere children, although not through any choice of their own.

* The SeeD in ''[[Final Fantasy VIII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VIII]]'' functions as a highly regarded military academy type institution and many students enter voluntarily. Students typically aren't taught in combat until their teens, and don't see actual combat outside of the training room until their graduation. Upon graduation, the SEED sometimes also work side jobs in policing duties and receive a regular salary.

* ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' has a few child characters, mostly [[Street Urchin|thieves]], Mages in training (and a few full fledged mages) and exiled royalty, but [[Fire Emblem Tellius (Video Game)|Rolf and Mist]] are put on the battlefield as an archer and a healer, respectively, despite being very young.

* Ikari Warriors member Whip from ''[[The King of Fighters (Video Game)|The King of Fighters]]'' is only 16.

* {{spoiler|Noodle}} of [[Gorillaz (Music)|Gorillaz]] was secretly trained to be a [[Super Soldier]] before joining the band.

* I pity the fools who forgot to mention ''[[Codename Kids Next Door (Animation)|Codename Kids Next Door]]''.

* The plot of ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender (Animation)|Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''? A group of teenagers take down the [[The Empire|Fire Nation]] army.

* In the original ''[[Thunder Cats]]'', the thunderkittens are apparently about twelve, or their species' equivalent, but they go into combat just as much as the adults. Lion-O is a borderline case, since he begins the series physically adult, but mentally a child.

* This gets [[Lampshaded]] in ''[[Young Justice (Animation)|Young Justice]]'', where the team is the black ops for the Justice League, where the oldest of them is 16 and the youngest is 13. An exasperated Mr. Twister brings this up after he [[Curb Stomp Battle|curb stomps]] them when Robin protests that they aren't children.

* Similar to above, the ''[[Teen Titans (Animation)|Teen Titans]]''. In the comics most of them eventually grow up quickly enough to avert this for most people, but the main gang in the cartoons doesn't. They almost die on several occasions, have no adult supervision, and the youngest is between the ages of fourteen and sixteen.

* [[Badass Normal|Caleb]] in [[WITCH (Animation)|WITCH]] is the leader of the rebellion at 15 years old.

* [[Now and Then Here And There]] deals with this trope in an almost unwatchably brutal manner.

** Milked not just for drama, but also for [[Deconstruction]]: Evangelion deconstructs [[Kid Hero|kid hero]] as [[Child Soldiers|child soldier]].

* [[Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (Anime)|Setsuna F. Seiei]] (mentioned above) also falls into this category. He was forced to watch his fellow child soldiers die and {{spoiler|killed his parents at the bidding of his group's [[Complete Monster]] leader.}} Years later, he still dreams about dodging bullets and wishes he could go back in time and save his younger self.

* Kazuma Shudo of ''[[Kagerou-Nostalgia]]'' is a teenage mercenary who's been in the business ever since demons killed his sister and his dreams of being a [[Kid Samurai]]. He's totally broken, burned out and sufferring from severe [[Shell Shocked Senior|shellshock]]. One could argue that Child [[Ninja]] Fuwa, [[The Hunter|demon-hunting]] [[Badass Preacher|initiate]] Shiranui, and [[Tyke Bomb]] Goki are also this.

* As Evangelion fics, ''[[Aeon Natum Engel (Fanfic)|Aeon Natum Engel]]'' and ''[[Aeon Entelechy Evangelion (Fanfic)|Aeon Entelechy Evangelion]]'' both fall under this. Since they are based in the ''[[Cthulhu Tech]]'' setting and written by [[Tropers/Earth Scorpion|Earth Scorpion]], it gets lampshaded a lot and criticized by the proper military of NEG. Played differently with Asuka, who is irritated that many things that she thinks will improve her piloting are restricted from her because of her age (like cybernization).

* [[Dumbledores Army and The Year of Darkness (Fanfic)|Dumbledore's Army.]] At least half of the members die horribly, and a good amount are crippled or killed in the sequel. However, the fic tends to glorify the hardened child soldiers in comparison to Harry, who hasn't embraced the military mindset.

* The ''[[Firefly]]'' fanfic ''[[Forward (Fanfic)|Forward]]'' has a reveal later on that some of [[School for Scheming|the Academy's]] test subjects are pre-teens. It is implied that one of them managed to kill several security guards when a training exercise went out of control.

* The [[Pokémon (Franchise)|Pokémon]] fanfic ''[[Poke Wars|Dawn of a New Era]]'' features the eponymous Pokémon coordinator as a badass but broken warrior.

* ''[[Downfall (Film)|Downfall]]'' features a girl of about 12 'manning' an 88mm gun at the Battle of Berlin. When everything appears hopeless, her not-much-older comrade shoots her at her own request, then kills himself.

* In ''[[Doctor Zhivago (Film)|Doctor Zhivago]],'' during the Russian Civil War, the Red Army unit in which Zhivago is serving as a medical officer comes under fire from a (presumably White) machine-gun nest in the distance. The Reds shoot all their attackers dead, then approach the nest and find that, while they are wearing some sort of uniform, they are only boys, except for one old man. One Red looks closer at a uniform and says, astonished, "St. Michael's Military School?!" To the dead old man: "You rotten bastard!"

* In ''Taps'', cadets at a [[Military School|military school]] find out that the [[Adults Are Useless|useless adults]] are planning to close the school and sell the land to condo developers. With the school's commander in the hospital, they decide that [[Saving the Orphanage|they will not allow this to happen]] and barricade themselves within its walls with weapons from the well-stocked armory. This leads to the inevitable standoff with the national guard.

** ''[[Aubrey Maturin]]'' is not the only example -- middies in Napoleonic naval fiction are commonly in action. Richard Bolitho destroys a pirate ship at sixteen, while [[Horatio Hornblower]] captured a French privateer at seventeen. Lord Ramage took to sea at thirteen. The minimum age in the Royal Navy was twelve for midshipmen, and eighteen for lieutenants. These restrictions were commonly relaxed, especially for members of prominent families.

* Even [[Alice Girl From the Future|Alisa Selezneva]], "Girl to whom nothing will happen" from books of Kir Bulychev, was drafted as a soldier once at age 12.

* In ''[[Animorphs (Literature)|Animorphs]]'', a group of barely teenagers get drafted into fighting a secret alien invasion by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Cue the loss of any personal life, killing and nearly getting killed a dozen times a week, being forced to [[Dirty Business|sacrifice loved ones for the greater good]] and recurring nightmares that last for the rest of their lives.

* A young Vlad Tepes in ''[[Count and Countess (Literature)|Count and Countess]]'' is held hostage by the Ottoman Empire and forced into the Janissaries.

* In ''[[Warrior Cats (Literature)|Warrior Cats]]'', one of the laws in the warrior code is that kits must be six moons old (the feline equivalent of about age 10) to begin training, and even then they don't see battle until they're more experienced. This rule stemmed from too many kits being trained at too young an age; it took their mothers refusing to fight in a battle to make the Clan leaders see sense. This law has been broken once during the books: Brokenstar trained ShadowClan kits to fight when they were barely weaned from their mothers, and as a result many of the Clan's kits died in battle.

* ''[[Someone Else's War (Literature)|Someone Elses War]]'' is about a fictitious Muslim boy who joins the (real) Lord's Resistance Army to find and save his little brother from this fate.

* Dealt with in several later-season episodes of ''[[M*A*S*H (TV)|M* A* S* H]]''.

* ''[[Twenty Four|24: Redemption]]'' sees Jack Bauer rescuing the pupils of school from becoming [[Child Soldiers]] and also features them.

* [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)|Buffy]] leads the potential slayers into what is essentially a hopeless war in season seven, with many or most of them being under 18. For that matter, though it was more of a lone warrior gig {{spoiler|prior to season seven}} any slayer would probably qualify, since 15-16 seems to be the usual age to be called, and 16 to 17 the usual age to be killed.

* In ''[[Firefly (TV)|Firefly]]'', River Tam is sent to an Alliance-controlled Academy, aged fourteen, for what she thinks is a more challenging curriculum than normal high schools. Instead, she gets the [[Training From Hell]], and it's clearly implied that she isn't the only one to get it- just one of the only ones to actually ''live'' through the process. By the time she's rescued from the facility by [[Papa Bear|her brother Simon]], she's only seventeen years old.

* ''[[Les Misérables (Theatre)|Les Misérables]]'' features Gavroche, who tags along with the student revolutionaries (who are themselves implied in several songs to be at ''most'' in their early 20s) and {{spoiler|manages to take 2 bullets while collecting ammunition for the students before he is fatally shot in the head}}.

* [[Emotionless Girl]] Leona from ''[[The King of Fighters (Video Game)|The King of Fighters]]'' started this way, after {{spoiler|[[Self-Made Orphan|killing her own parents]] under Goenitz's [[More Than Mind Control]]}} and being adopted by [[Colonel Badass]] Heidern {{spoiler|who had lost his daughter and wife}}.

* ''[[Iji (Video Game)|Iji]]'' and her brother Dan are pressed into fighting an alien invasion because [[The Only One|just about everyone else is dead.]] Some of the logbooks imply that the Tasen draft soldiers as soon as they're old enough to hold a rifle, somewhat justified as {{spoiler|the Komato have hunted them to the brink of extinction.}}

* [[Final Fantasy VIII (Video Game)|SeeD]] is made up almost entirely of [[Child Soldiers]]; the game's hero, Squall, began his training at approximately the age of five (and it has screwed him up something fierce). Most of the cadets are orphans, and the [[Phlebotinum]] they're trained to use has the side effect of eroding their memories.

** It is arguable that ''[[Final Fantasy VIII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VIII]]'' can be a deconstruction of this trope. The teenagers trained by Garden are quite effective in combat, but they still make very bad decisions due to their youth and inexperience. Squall's screwed up head is just one example of the underlying theme of "training children to fight from a very young age = bad."

* ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' games usually play this for drama. The younger members often have some tragic backstory that forces them into war. A few examples: Amelia, Ross, and Franz from [[Fire Emblem the Sacred Stones (Video Game)|Fire Emblem the Sacred Stones]] all have a [[Missing Mom]]. The latter two suffering from varying degrees of [[Disappeared Dad]]. Amelia's mom was kidnapped by bandits, [[Fridge Horror|whatever that may lead to]] {{spoiler|Though, if you support Amelia with Duessel, we learn that her mom got better}}. Ross's mom got sick and died, and his father, who had left them to join the army, retired to raise his son. Franz's mother got sick and died as well, his father, a knight, died fighting bandits. We also have Colm and Neimi. Neimi was raised by her grandfather, and when he died, Colm was the only other person she had. Naturally, those two are the fastest support in the game, usually able to get to A level by the 8th chapter.

* ''[[Fallout New Vegas]]'': You can talk to a [[Retired Badass|Retired NCR Ranger]] with a broken leg in Novac. If you ask him why his leg is broken, he'll say that it was because the Legion sent children as suicide bombers against him and his squad, knowing they'd hesitate to shoot.

* In ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy|Dissidia 012: Duodecim]]'', [[Final Fantasy XII (Video Game)|Vaan]], [[Mythology Gag|possibly in reference to the orphaned friends he had in his own youth in the slums of Rabanastre]], views the fact that the young [[Final Fantasy III (Video Game)|Onion Knight]] is also part of the Conflict of the Gods as being a tragedy (despite the fact that the latter is very capable of holding his own, to the point that pretty much everyone else on the team ignores his age and sees him as a worthy peer), and so ends up inadvertently patronising him for his youth.

* Cloud's mom, Ye Thuza, from ''[[Sandra and Woo (Webcomic)|Sandra and Woo]]'' was recently revealed to have been with Burmese rebels when she was only 16. While it hasn't been explored in much detail yet, it's certainly demonstrated a touch more seriously than the overall tone of the comic, [[Don't Explain the Joke|apart from being half of a punchline in which Ye Thuza remarks she's "always been a rebel" while comparing her life as an American housewife to her years in Burma]].

* [[Rubys World]] uses this as the base of the conflict; the villains regularly use third world children as material for their cybernetic super-soldiers, and several of the young heroes have this blood-stained technology in their bodies.

* In ''[[El Goonish Shive (Webcomic)|El Goonish Shive]]'', after a monster attacked Susan in Paris, two Immortals empowered her and Nanase, and instructed how to kill it. Even though they presumably could have asked an experienced local magic-user just as well.

* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender (Animation)|Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'': Aang--the only character who knows what it is to live in a time of peace (other than Bumi, who is at this point over a 100 years old)--is the last survivor of a genocide. Then you have [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Jet]], Sokka (who is basically put in charge of the defence of an entire village ''and'' an invasion), ''Zuko'' (the poster child for emotionally/physically scarred [[Child Soldiers]]), Katara (her childhood ended at ''nine'')... Heck, one of the main villains is a ''fourteen year old girl'' {{spoiler|who ends up having a [[Villainous Breakdown]]}}. It's even lampshaded a few times.

* The Imperial Youth Corps in [[Imperial Japan]] during WWII. Conscripted to thwart ''[[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|Operation Downfall]]'', they taught the girls to fight as well. Weapons were very short and ammunition was even shorter, though, so they were training them in the use of spears, knives and molotov cocktails. There wasn't much metal for the knives or petrol for the molotovs, either. They would likely have been over-represented among the 5-10 million Japanese civilians High Command expected to kill or maim in the course of the invasion. It would only have taken a single incident of Japanese children making the suicide attacks they had been trained to carry out for every Allied soldier to regard them with suspicion. And of course, many an Allied soldier would rather be safe than sorry...

* The Hagannah was reduced to using high-schoolers as auxilieries during the [[Arab Israeli Conflict|Siege of Jerusalem]].