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[[File:GeneralPatton.jpg|frame|link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_S._Patton|[[Truth in Television]].]]
 
{{quote|''"There's [[There Are Two Kinds of People in the World|two kinds of generals]] in the service. Some are dumber than a box of inbred chickens and get their job through political connections, and not actual battlefield skills. I'm the other kind. Learn the difference."''|'''General Lumberdon''', ''[[Antihero for Hire]]'' [http://www.antiheroforhire.com/d/20090406.html 2009-04-06]}}
|'''General Lumberdon''', ''[[Antihero for Hire]]'' [http://www.antiheroforhire.com/d/20090406.html 2009-04-06]}}
 
{{quote|'''Soldier:''' "Where ya goin', General?"
'''Patton:''' "Berlin. I'm going to personally shoot [[Adolf Hitler|that paper-hangin' sonofabitch]]!"|''[[Patton]]''}}
|''[[Patton]]''}}
 
The '''Four-Star Badass''' is a badass in a military hierarchy that also happens to be a flag officer in a military hierarchy.
 
The [[Colonel Badass]] page explains that a Colonel is usually more [[Badass]] than a General because although a General has the higher rank (and may even be a certifiable [[Badass]] himself) they're usually relegated to desk duty and administrative tasks. This is also the reason why [[The Captain]] will always be the star of the show even if they don't have the same clout as a Commodore or Admiral.
 
However, some fiction writers don't subscribe to this notion. They believe that [[Asskicking Equals Authority|in order to have reached a four-star rank you had to have done some]] ''[[Asskicking Equals Authority|serious]]'' [[Asskicking Equals Authority|asskicking once upon a time]]. While some writers feel [[Badass]]ery is a muscle that [[Badass Decay|grows weak]] with disuse, the writers who subscribe to this trope feel it's more like riding a bike; you never forget how to do it. Even after years of sitting behind a desk, filing reports, cashing fat checks, and being saluted by ''everybody''.
 
The important characteristic of Four-Star Badass is the BADASS''badass''. It's not enough for them to be [[The Brigadier]] or a [[Benevolent Boss]] (although they tend to share some of the same characteristics, like never saying "[[We Have Reserves]]" and being [[A Father to His Men|A Father To Their Men]]). They have to actually ''[[Royals Who Actually Do Something|do]]'' something to earn the title. This usually involves rolling up their sleeves, ditching the desk, and mixing it up.
 
This happens in a number of ways:
* '''The Four-Star Badass is the star''' -: [[The Hero]] of the story also happens to be a General or Admiral, ensuring that they have to get involved in the story's conflicts and adventures.▼
 
* '''[[Awesome Moment of Crowning]], Business As Usual''' -: [[The Captain]] or [[Colonel Badass]] gets promoted. But they're [[The Hero]] so they continue to be badass.▼
▲'''The Four-Star Badass is the star''' - [[The Hero]] of the story also happens to be a General or Admiral, ensuring that they have to get involved in the story's conflicts and adventures.
* '''The [[Future Badass]] route''' -: If its a [[Speculative Fiction]] series, we may get an episode glimpse in which a protagonist, usually [[The Captain]], is promoted, probably [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]].▼
 
* '''Ten -Minute Promotion''' -: They're promoted for a moment, but events (or themselves) conspire to demote them right back into a position where they're back in the field.▼
▲'''[[Awesome Moment of Crowning]], Business As Usual''' - [[The Captain]] or [[Colonel Badass]] gets promoted. But they're [[The Hero]] so they continue to be badass.
* '''[[Da Chief]] To The Rescue''' -: The [[Cowboy Cop]] or [[Military Maverick]] has gotten themselves in a ''real'' jam. [[Da Chief]] takes it upon themselves to personally get involved in order to rescue their subordinate. They might say something like ''"Sure X is a loose cannon, but dammit, they're MY loose cannon and I'm gonna get them."''▼
 
▲'''The [[Future Badass]] route''' - If its a [[Speculative Fiction]] series, we may get an episode glimpse in which a protagonist, usually [[The Captain]], is promoted, probably [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]].
 
▲'''Ten Minute Promotion''' - They're promoted for a moment, but events (or themselves) conspire to demote them right back into a position where they're back in the field.
 
▲'''[[Da Chief]] To The Rescue''' - The [[Cowboy Cop]] or [[Military Maverick]] has gotten themselves in a ''real'' jam. [[Da Chief]] takes it upon themselves to personally get involved in order to rescue their subordinate. They might say something like ''"Sure X is a loose cannon, but dammit, they're MY loose cannon and I'm gonna get them."''
 
Many examples of this trope will probably turn out to be [[Badass Grandpa|Badass Grandpas and Grandmas]], and sometimes [[Cool Old Guy]]s and [[Cool Old Lady|Cool Old Ladies]]. Often a contemporary of the [[Old Soldier]].
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Contrast [[General Ripper]]<ref>Though sometimes this guy may be badass enough to qualify, especially if his obsession came from leading the fight from the front and snapped after seeing the Enemy's atrocities firsthand.</ref> and [[General Failure]]. May have a [[Chest of Medals]].
 
Please no [[Real Life]] examples. With{{noreallife|with thousands of years of recorded history, there are enough of them to crash the entire wiki.}}
 
Despite the fact that this is named "Four-''Star'' Badass", examples do not need to be confined to the US military. "Four-Maple-Leaf Badass", "Sword-and-Starburst Badass", and "Five-Bar Badass" don't have the same ring to it.
 
{{examples}}
 
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'''s Major General Olivier Mira Armstrong, who once single-handedly took on the superhuman [[Our Homunculi Are Different|Sloth]] armed only with a broad sword.
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** For that matter, the Desert Fox himself - the original [[Magnificent Bastard]] - Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.
** It should be pointed out that the "shooting a pistol at a passing plane mid-strafe" scene was completely written for the movie. However, Patton's son, a consultant for the movie, stated that if put in that position the General ''absolutely'' would have done the exact same thing. The immediately following line was also completely plausible: "Hell, I wish he'd land so I could give him a medal!"
***While that does indeed sound plausible for Patton, it was quite common for people on the ground to work off their frustration shooting at planes with small arms. Standing out in front of the plane's path as if one was a matador is a bit much though.
* Admiral James T. Kirk in the first four ''[[Star Trek]]'' movies. Naturally.
** And his TOS crew is [[Genre Savvy]] enough to know it. When a new ensign protests Kirk's last minute command orders in ''The Motion Picture'', Uhura coolly and effectively shuts him down with one sentence:
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* ''[[Ip Man]]'' has the Japanese General Miura, who is an honourable, honest-to-goodness ass-kicking pugilist. He is contrasted with the [[Smug Snake]] Colonel Sato who can't make the cut for [[Colonel Badass]].
* [[Awesome McCoolname|Brigadier General Francis X. Hummel]], Marines Force Recon from ''[[The Rock]]''.
* [[Street Fighter (film)|''Street Fighter'']]: Should General M. Bison]] be added to this list?? [[Large Ham|OF COURSE!]]
 
 
== [[Comic Books]] ==
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== Literature ==
* Admiral [[Honor Harrington]]. Actually a fair number of Admirals in the Honorverse.
**In the Honorverse someone has to command fleets at the sharp point even if the bureaucracy is way back at [[Mission Control]]. It is not just an affectation that there is no room for "chateau generalship" in the Royal Manticoran Navy.
***That is truth in television too. A prolonged commerce raiding/counterraiding contest can be directed from shore. However communications has never been good enough to allow that in a fleet action (it has not been tested sense then as there have been no full dress fleet actions sense world war 2). More importantly a fleet has a few dozen ships, while a twentieth century army sprawls all over the place.
***At the same time generals have when they could gotten close to the front lines often because they were subalterns in WWI and did not remember chateau generalship fondly. Coincidently, chateau generalship was as much because of the circumstance of WWI on the Western Front which was one big siege. Thus it placed a premium on command rather then leadership, and it was not necessarily because of actual cowardice in officers who had after all signed on for a career they knew involved getting shot at. In places where there was room to maneuver like the Eastern front or Middle Eastern fronts of [[World War I]] or in the succeeding bits of chaos you do occasionally see a four star badass.
** Henke, a friend of Harrington's is a badass on her own and she shows up in some of the later series.
** Haven has several. They did after all survive Manticore.
** Solarians with few exceptions are extremely bereft in the badassery department. That is because they have not fought a war for ages and are really mainly good at bureaucratic infighting. That would be the case if the Solarians were a more-or-less honestly run service and given how big a pork-barrel a military-industrial complex can be without the encouragement [[HAD to Be Sharp|of an outside enemy]] (not to mention governments that value bootlicking more then efficiency), honesty is something you grade on a curve anyway. But the Solarian armed forces are not subject just to ordinary peacetime rot but like everything else in their government tend to be suborned by outright criminals. Moreover their technology and tactics are way behind the times, almost as much as the Chinese in the Opium war. However, so far Solarian admirals have not displayed cowardice at least. That just got their people killed in greater numbers. In other words the Solarian admirals are not badasses, they are targets.
* Patrick McLanahan from the books of [[Dale Brown]]. Various other characters get promoted to stars without much loss in badassery too. To be honest, though, while he is still a good bomber crew member and [[Powered Armor|Tin Man]] user if needs must, he now spends more time as [[Mission Control]] and fighting off politicians or other generals so that the lower ranks can do their job.
* ''[[Discworld]]'''s Sam Vimes, Commander of the City Watch and one of the wealthiest if not the wealthiest man in the city (by marriage) by the end of ''[[Discworld/Men At Arms|Men Atat Arms]]'', His Grace, the Duke of Ankh by the end of ''[[Discworld/Jingo|Jingo]]'', and still giving the criminal element a [[Groin Attack|good kick in the nadgers]] when he isn't fighting off quasi-demonic forces, foiling dastardly political conspiracies, [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|or reading to his son, Sam Vimes Jr.]]
* General Serpilin from Konstantin Simonov's WWII epic ''The Living and The Dead'', especially in the first book, when his troops escape being surrounded by Nazis.
* While the command structure in ''[[Starship Troopers (novel)|Starship Troopers]]'' can be defined as [[Authority Equals Asskicking]], the Sky Marshals take the cake. In order to get that promotion, one needs to go through the command structures of both the Navy and the Mobile Infantry, starting from the bottom. Also note that the Sky Marshal leads from the front. In the book, the Sky Marshal who planned the disastrous Battle of Klendathu died on Klendathu. In the movie, it just had them resign, being a REMF (Rear Echelon Mother Fucker).
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** General Hammond put on fatigues every now and then and was never afraid to leave the desk when a more ''"personal"'' touch was needed. Also, Sam Carter's dad General Jacob Carter became one of the leaders of the Tok'ra resistance.
*** The writers were even kind enough to give Gen. Hammond a [[Badass]] [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]]. One episode found him serving as gunner in a Goa'uld vessel piloted by Teal'c. After a successful strafing run against the bad guys, Hammond yelled out a good-ol' Texas "Yee-haw!"
* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]]'' showed that Captain Janeway became FAR more badass when she became Admiral in the future.
** In the final episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'', Commander Riker becomes Admiral [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]], but he's lost some of his badassness. He gets it back, though.
*** Admiral Maxwell Forrest of ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise|Star Trek Enterprise]]''. And his mirror universe counterpart, who was [[The Captain]].
** General/Chancellor Martok. "''A bottle??? HA! I've brought a barrel of 2309 Blood wine. There is NO finer vintage!''"
* Due to the weird system of Colonial rank, Commander Adama of the ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' is most likely equivalent to a Commodore. And he is certainly a [[Badass]]. And he became an even bigger badass when the President promoted him to Admiral.
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* General Stockwell of the 5th season of ''[[The A-Team]]'' is shown to be a excellent marksman and hand-to-hand combatant as well as fluent in Chinese and always two steps ahead of everyone else. Of course, he ''is'' played by [[The Man from U.N.C.L.E.|Robert Vaughn]]...
* Several characters are this in ''[[Game of Thrones]]''.
* [[The Winds of War and War and Remembrance|The Winds of War/War and Remembrance]] miniseries naturally shows a number of four star badasses. Victor Henry, the hero, ends up as one at the end when the war is over making him a four star retired badass. Von Roon who is an [[Insufferable Genius]] in the book, is an [[Only Sane Man]] in Hitler's court and takes the time to personally visit the front (and see the appalling sight of German soldiers trickling towards the rear). There are also [[Historical Domain Character|Historical Domain Characters]] like Patton, Rommel, Halsey, Spruance, and others.
 
 
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* Generals in ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]'' are among the most powerful units in their respective armies. This is especially true with the Imperial Guard. The rank-and-file are little more than cannon fodder who don't stand a chance in melee combat, while generals wield power swords, plasma pistols, and armour themselves with carapace armour and refractor fields.
** Doubly true of the Space Marines. Promotions up through the ranks from basic footsoldier (Scout) to Brother-Marine, Brother-Sergeant, and Brother-Captain to Chapter Master. They can dual-wield most power weapons (the picture in the Codex shows one dual-wielding ''Thunder Hammers''), call down orbital bombardments, and take to the field in Terminator armour, the best protection around.
*** Don't forget the founders of the Space Marine legions, the Primarchs. Apart from being so freaking badass that they all basically took over the planet they grew up on. Sanguinius apparently broke the back of a Greater Daemon of Khorne (AKA "Bloodthirster") over his knee in the Siege of Terra.
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** Now that Wrex is chief of all the krogan, he qualilfies.
* [[Final Fantasy IX]] has [[Lady of War|General Beatrix from Alexandria]], whom you never beat during the game. {{spoiler|You fight her ''[[Hopeless Boss Fight|three times]]''.}}
* General Horace Warfield, the Terran Dominion's answer to the Zerg invasion in ''[[StarcraftStarCraft II|Starcraft II: Wings Of Liberty]]''. Previous examples of four-or-better-stars in the series were impressive, but lacking true badassery. Warfield, however, {{spoiler|holds the line on the ground in a suit of Marine armor on Char itself with his men, not from the bridge of a battlecruiser}}. He bayonets a zergling, only to get spined by a hydralisk—then punches the hydralisk right the hell out when it subsequently pounces on him. In the end, he needed rescue from Raynor with a [[BFG]] and a few Banshees, but the fact remains--''he knocked out a hydralisk''. Later, he's complaining that the medics wouldn't cut his arm off to halt the spread of the hydralisk's poison. Still later, he shows up...with [[Arm Cannon|a mechanical arm that can change into a gun]].
* Legate Lanius in [[Fallout: New Vegas]]. Averted pathetically with General Lee "Wait-and-See" Oliver.
** The previous Legate Joshua Graham, also known as the Burned Man, was also horrifically terrifying in battle, though his poor understanding of warfare leads him to be more of a General Ripper.
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== Webcomics[[Web Comics]] ==
* From ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'':
** Captain Kaff Tagon and his father, General Karl Tagon. The former has his own mercenary company, which has played a pivotal role in almost every modern (for the comic) conflict. The latter is retired, pushing 70, and still remains in fighting condition, even when reduced to a head in a jar.
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* [[Magnificent Bastard|General Tarquin]] from ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' - when he first arrived on the Western Continent, he conquered eleven different nations over the course of eight months, and was only deposed through the combined efforts of ''twenty-six'' others. And if [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0851.html this page] is anything to go by, he's still got it even in his later years.
* The Jager Generals in ''[[Girl Genius]]'' each qualify. And there are currently seven. An "average" Jägermonster is a [[Super Soldier]] who [[Blood Knight|likes to fight]] enough to subscribe for indefinite military service despite knowing that the transformation is more likely to kill him immediately instead, is not just confident, but showy about it, and was good enough [[Old Soldier|to actually survive for]] ''centuries'' like this. Generals apparently are not only "schmott vuns" who "knows pipple" (they do), but stood out far enough for long enough in this company.
* ''[[Antihero for Hire]]'' has General Lumberdon. He talks funny, so [https://web.archive.org/web/20140801205147/http://antihero.keenspot.com/d/20090406.html time] and [https://web.archive.org/web/20140627101444/http://antihero.keenspot.com/d/20140609.html again] it comes up as a "sorrowful news" that even when not quite on top of the situation, he still knows better than to buy anyone's bullshit and can sort things out personally if needed.
 
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Four-Star Badass{{PAGENAME}}]]▼
[[Category:Authority Tropes]]
[[Category:Meaningful Titles]]
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[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]
[[Category:Badass]]
▲[[Category:Four-Star Badass]]
[[Category:No Real Life Examples, Please]]
[[Category:Badass in Charge]]
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