Combat Pragmatist/Literature: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|'''Baron Vengeous:''' "...only a heathen would bring a gun to a swordfight."

 

* In [[Tom Clancy]]'s stories, the good guys subscribe to this line of thinking, particularly the military, who are paraphrased at one point as believing ''If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn't plan it very well.''

* Caine/Hari from ''[[The Acts of Caine]]'' is widely considered the best infighter alive, even after being rendered partially paraplegic. He does not fight fair, ever, and it allows him to win fights where he really should have had no chance. Illustration: right after [[Darkest Hour|his lowest point]] in ''Blade of Tyshalle'', he escapes a dungeon cell by luring a guard in and provoking him to attack, apparently giving up the element of surprise. To recap, this is a naked and malnourished Caine, covered in his own filth, chained to the wall with his legs currently not working. The guard on the other hand is armored in chainmail, upright and well fed, and has the [[Counter Attack|"chance"]] to draw his club and attack Caine first. After a few minutes the situation changes to that of a naked and unconscious guard in Caine's shackles while a now armed and armored Caine crawls up the dungeon steps.

{{quote|"We're soldiers. Soldiers shoot in the back, lay traps and ambushes, lie to the enemy, and outnumber the other bastard every chance they get. Your kind of murder only works among civilians. And you were too stupid, too ''insane,'' to realize that."}}

* Staying with [[Orson Scott Card]] for a moment, in his novelisation of ''The Abyss'' the SEAL team leader, Coffey, is mentioned as having taken down a neighbourhood bully eight years his senior not in a straight-up street fight: rather, by going, lying in wait for the guy, and caving his head in with a cinderblock when the guy's back was turned. He then describes how Coffey tidies up, goes home, and never seeks any recognition of his act. On the other hand, Coffey is characterised as somewhere between a [[Heroic Sociopath]] and a [[Complete Monster]].

* Simon Illyan, Miles's 50-something boss in the ''[[Vorkosigan Saga]]'', is a fairly uptight but [[Reasonable Authority Figure]]. He doesn't actually get his hands dirty, he has underlings for that. When his artificial memory chip is sabotaged, and his underlings have to get him into medical treatment, though, he fights back...and he fights ''dirty''. No one knew, because no one had ever seen him fight before.

** In ''Ethan of Athos'', Miles' protege, Elli Quinn, has to rescue a hostage, with inadequate forces and without collateral damage.

* Corwin in the ''[[Chronicles of Amber]]'' is big on this. For example, in his climactic sword duel with a powerhouse foreshadowed a book earlier, Corwin runs away, rounds a corner, throws his cloak into the other man's face as he follows, then stabs the guy while he's blind.

** "Not the Winter Olympics" indeed.

** His son Merlin later mocks the guy's ghost for fighting fair after defeating him again by {{spoiler|accidentally throwing a sword at him.}}

** This is essentially Cowin's biggest personality trait. He takes over a swords-and-sorcery kingdom with a small force {{spoiler|carrying assault rifles.}} At one point he wants his son to follow him; his son declines, and so Corwin {{spoiler|attacks him with a sword, feints around him, punches him unconscious and carries him away.}}

* ''[[Black Company]]'', a mercenary force in the series of the same name by [[Glen Cook]], make a living, and survive in the face of enormous odds, by fighting dirty and using every resource available to them in order to make themselves look like the baddest motherfuckers around. When it works, things look good for the Company. When it doesn't, that's when the fun begins.

* Smilla Jaspersen from ''[[Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow|Miss Smillas Feeling for Snow]]'' by Peter Hoeg has a history of winning against people much bigger and stronger than her. She stabs a man in the neck with a screwdriver when he tries to kidnap her, and topples a shelf onto a person she thinks is following her in the filing room of an office building. She also forces her stepmother to listen to her demands by pinching her in the crotch and bending her pinky finger all the way back. Apparently she's been this way all her life. She beat up a racist school bully much larger than her by finding out where he lived and ambushing him early in the morning, sending him to the hospital. When her father, a noted surgeon, tried to grab her and drag her home after she ran away at the age of twelve, she cut him with a scalpel she stole from the hospital she escaped from. When she is trapped on a ship with the vaguely psychopathic character Jakkelsen, she [[Improvised Weapon|makes a weapon from a towel and a ball bearing]], and injures him badly enough that he needs medical attention. However, she is always described as a [[Waif Fu|petite and delicate woman]]. She is the narrator, by the way.

** In [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''Horus Rising'', Loken defeats Lucius in a practice sword fight by [[Talk to the Fist|punching him]]; Lucius's still smarting over it in [[Graham McNeill]]'s ''Fulgrim''.

** In [[Ben Counter]]'s ''Galaxy In Flames'', Tarvitz, who watched, commented that he had learned from it, to do whatever was needed to win. {{spoiler|So, Lucius being a [[Turncoat]] who had betrayed them to Horus and having gotten into a figh with Tarvitz, Tarvitz has [[The Cavalry|the Emperor's Children coming to make a flanking attack]] shoot at Lucius and end their fight.}}

** While Alpharius did indeed preach pragmatism, he rarely practiced it. Alpharius wanted to prove himself to his elder brothers, so his tactics were usually incredibly convoluted and elaborate purely so he could show how great his men were when they pulled it off - in one case, he held off attacking a poorly defended planet so the defenders could bolster the defenses to a huge level. He won, and told his fellow primarchs that "it would be too easy" to just attack at once. A better example would be Guilliman, who favoured efficiency (he concentrated on the boring stuff like logistics and supply, knowing it would help more towards victory than cool weapons etc) or Night Haunter, who was a completely ruthless,[[Ax Crazy|psychotic]] [[Utopia Justifies the Means|vigilante]], who led a Legion of rapists and murderers and nuked his own homeworld.

* Don "Mad Dog" Slade from [[David Drake]]'s ''Cross the Stars'' observes that you should only hit someone with your bare hands when you're naked and your feet are nailed to the floor.

* If [[Repairman Jack]] can't beat it, he'll shoot it. Heck, he'll probably shoot it even if he ''can'' beat it - he'd rather err on the side of caution. Now, if shooting doesn't work (which is not unlikely, given [[Cosmic Horror|some]] [[Eldritch Abomination|things]] he bumps into) things will get ''really'' funny.

* ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'':

** Feyd took this approach to the Gladiatorial arena as well. {{spoiler|When Thufir's ''undrugged'' gladiator gave Feyd and the crowd the match of a lifetime, it turned out that Feyd had put the ceremonial poison for his bout on the ''wrong blade'', allowing him to show his cunning in front of the entire population of Harko.}}

* Lazarus Long in ''[[Time Enough for Love]]'' is one of these. Generally all [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s "good" characters are.

* In the ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' series, Kahlan learns about how the Mud People once slaughtered a vastly larger tribe simply by killing them everywhere except on the battlefields. In their homes, in their privies, in their beds, everywhere. Later, when confronting an army of D'Haran rebels who have sided with the Imperial Order, she puts these lessons to work. To start with, she poisons a cart of liquor and leaves it to be found by the enemy officers. Later, she leads a night raid into the enemy camp...[[Memetic Mutation|naked, like the Celts]], and butchers several of the officers remaining. This trend continues as she has her army made particular emphasis on killing physicians and other non-combatants, as killing one of them is as good as killing dozens of other soldiers who could no longer be healed by them. By the end, she has led an army of recruits to victory against a battle-hardened veteran force ten times its size.

** Later, during the fighting retreat as the Imperial Order [[Million Mook March|in its millions]] finally invades the New World, Kahlan increases her pragmatism by an order of magnitude. After the D'Haran army is handily defeated in a stand-up fight, she takes charge and spends the better part of a year using hit-and-run guerilla tactics to grind down the Order's army by hundreds of thousands. In her most impressive feat, she she uses a barrel of powdered glass and scatters it in front of an advancing enemy force, killing thousands from lung infections and causing tens of thousands to go blind.

* Present in ''[[The Pyrates]]'' in the form of Colonel Thomas Blood, skilled swordsman and master shin-kicker. His dirty fighting is enough to let him keep up with classical master (and deliberate [[Canon Sue]]) Long Ben Avery, despite being slower, weaker, and far less fit. Also averted by pirate swordmaster Black Bilbo:

{{quote|Avery, on t'other hand, is a genius, as we know, and younger and fitter -- but then again, Bilbo has the experience, and knows lots of tricks -- but curiously enough, black scoundrel though he is, the thought of using them [[Worthy Opponent|never crosses his mind]].}}

* ''[[Don Quixote]]'': Alonso Quixano admires famous Knight Bernardo del Carpio because he defeated Roldan (in an alternative legend to the Song of Roland) because, instead of attacking Roldan the Enchanted with a sword, Bernardo just strangled him. Part I, Chapter 1:

{{quote|''"He thought more of [[Weird Al Effect|Bernardo del Carpio]] because at [[The Song of Roland|Roncesvalles ]] he slew [[Nigh Invulnerable|Roland]] in spite of [[A Wizard Did It|enchantments]], availing himself of the artifice of Hercules when he strangled Antaeus the son of Terra in his arms. "''}}

{{quote|'''Baron Vengeous:''' "...only a heathen would bring a gun to a swordfight."

'''Skulduggery:'' "And only a moron would bring a sword to a gun fight." }}

* In the [[Dale Brown]] novel ''Executive Intent'', the Chinese are this in their attack on Mogadishu. Some guy firing on their troops from a building? Most forces would try to storm the building and get into risky room clearing. Screw that. They level the whole damn building. Doesn't matter if you're a militiaman/pirate/gangster or really just a civilian - you make the mistake of gathering in a group that could be remotely construed as a regrouping squad, they'll mow you all down and let Chairman Mao sort out the dead.