Leeroy Jenkins: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

 

 

If your leader doesn't wise up and [[Just Eat Gilligan|punt him from the team]] after the first couple offenses, he can become a real-life gaming example of [[The Millstone]], ruining any chance you have of completing your quest or mission successfully.

 

 

 

If an A.I. character that you need to keep alive does this, you have a classic example of a bad [[Escort Mission]].

If, rather than being a [[Noob]], the Leeroy is doing this purposefully to get a laugh out of disrupting the [[Serious Business]] that internet gaming has become, then he is a [[Griefer]] and should be kicked posthaste.

 

 

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N6sqdrJzVo Now available in] [[Stupid Statement Dance Mix]].

{{examples}}

* The title character of ''[[Naruto]]'' might as well be renamed Leeroy with the number of times he does this.

** Naruto gets called out on this when he runs off after Yukimaru by himself in the Three-Tails arc, with Kakashi and Yamato reminding him of the impact his actions could have had on the mission, and Sakura punching Naruto into the ground so hard he makes a crater.

** However, he quickly learns to improvise in ways that take advantage of the enemy assuming this to be the case. Apparently, even better than having a plan is having a plan while the enemy thinks you're too stupid or cowardly to have a plan, or insanely reckless is [[Crazy Enough to Work]].

** In response to the Akatsuki threat, Naruto and Killer Bee were {{spoiler|sent away to an inhospitable jungle island}} due to their Leeroy-ness making them easy capture.

* Rak from ''[[Tower of God]]''. The test in question was designed so that one picked the right door. Koon is trying to work with what little clues they have been given, whereas Rak gathers that the scarcity of of clues was {{spoiler|just another way of saying "Gamble!"}}, so he kicked a random door down. This just proves how much of a fuck Rak doesn't give, since choosing the wrong door is penalized by death. {{spoiler|Luckily, [[Hidden Purpose Test|EVERY SINGLE DOOR was correct.]]}}

* ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya]]'': In the [[Deep-Immersion Gaming]] episode, Haruhi is exactly like this. [[Deadpan Snarker|Kyon]] manages to talk her out of it until the middle of the battle, though.

** Sanji pulls a Leeroy Jenkins in the Water 7 arc, when he goes off on his own to look for Robin, knowing that she was not telling the truth about no longer wanting to be with the Straw Hats, and does it again when he decides to rescue her from the CP9 after boarding the Sea Train, despite Zoro warning him over the Den Den Mushi about the CP9's strength; he says that he would not obey any order given to hold back now that Robin needs to be saved. Incidentally, Luffy approved of this approach, and told Zoro he would have done the same thing as Sanji. And proceeded to do so as soon as they arrived at Enies Lobby.

* ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]''

** He tried to fight a [[Humongous Mecha]] in the first episode. On foot. With a sword. How in the hell do you figure he survives that if left to his own devices? (According to [[Word of God]], he would have won.)

* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]''

** Shinji also does this at one point, imprisoning him inside a 2-D Angel until Unit 01 goes nuts and rips itself out of its 3-D shadow.

* Ash Ketchum from ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' is guilty of this. Despite having Pokémon to fight his battles for him, his solution to most problems upon first encountering them is to let out a [[Battle Cry]] and launch himself at them headfirst. This is especially true in the movies. For instance, he ran at Mewtwo and tried to punch him (twice) in the first movie, threw himself at the cage holding Moltres captive at the second, charged at Entei in the third, threw himself at the cage holding Latios in the fifth... and no matter how many times Ash tries to use Take Down, it always has no effect.

** Ichigo Kurosaki does it, but not for the sake of idiocy itself. When Orihime goes to Hueco Mundo, Ichigo is told by the Soul Society to stand by and for now consider her to be defecting, but at least they won't specifically mark her death for awhile. Being the [[Chaotic Good]] personified he is, Ichigo gleefully ignored that order and bum rushes to Hueco Mundo to save Orihime, accompanied with his friends (later Rukia and Renji follows). This screws up the Soul Society's former plan to get all the Captains together and sent Byakuya, Kenpachi, Unohana, Mayuri and their respective squads to Hueco Mundo, which enables Aizen to lock them there.

** Aizen actually counted on Ichigo being chivalrous and overprotective of his [[True Companions]] to the point of stupidity. There's a reason why some fans refer to Aizen as "Captain [[Gambit Roulette|Roulette]]".

** Then there's when Ichigo charges blindly at Ulquiorra, who he thought was the top Espada at the time, just because Ulquiorra said he brought Orihime to Hueco Mundo. It ended badly.

** Maki Ichinose serves as a villainous Leeroy Jenkins in the Bount Arc, as he decides to fight Kenpachi and settle his grudge against him for killing the previous captain of Squad 11 rather than preventing Ichigo and the others from pursuing the Bounts into the Seireitei.

** In the climax to the series, {{spoiler|Mikami deviates from the plan and takes out his notebook to kill Takada before the task force can find her, resulting in Near finding out where the real notebook is and making a copy of that, too, thus preventing Mikami from killing the SPK and task force in the climax. This was brought on by a spur-of-the-moment strategy that Mello used}}.

** This tactic proves successful earlier in the series when Soichiro Yagami sneaks out of the hospital despite recovering from a (non-Kira-induced) heart attack, drives a police bus through the doors of Sakura TV's headquarters, and manages to stop the broadcast of the Second Kira's messages, despite L and the task force holding back after the second Kira kills Ukita.

* ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (anime)|Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]''

** In the first season, Fate tries to extract the six unclaimed Jewel Seeds from the ocean using a spell. When there's a considerable reaction and the ocean itself seems to be attacking her, Admiral Lindy plans to stay back until Fate finishes and then go in and capture her, but Nanoha, who places higher priority on befriending Fate, intervenes with Yuuno to help against orders and leaves with half the Jewel Seeds. Lindy reprimands the two, but lets them off without punishment because things turned out well.

** During the hotel attack in [[Nanoha Striker S|StrikerS]], Shamal orders the forwards to hold the line against the gadget drones until Vita returns. Teana decides to go on the offensive and destroy the drones with a large Crossfire, which almost hits Subaru.

** Signum, of all people, was guilty of doing this in the early chapters of the ''FORCE'' manga. Rushing into an opponent whose abilities are very dangerous against magical warriors(aka. her kind), without waiting for backup, without any upgrades(even worse by the fact that she's in fact weaker than before because of her toughness and recovering powers started to fade away since ''[[Striker S]]'' which take place six years before ''Force'') and without considering that the little info and measures she had about said opponent's abilities can be a bit inaccurate. She got [[Curb Stomp Battle|horribly trashed]] for her troubles.

* Two big ones in ''[[Utawarerumono]]''. The first is Oboro, and in being a Leeroy he kicks off the events of the plot. He more or less grows out of this but is still very rash. The other is the emperor, who felt it would be a good idea to completely ignore his brilliant and highly paid general Benawi and start burning down random neutral villages, forcing them to side with Hakuoro. He doesn't get better, because this gets his country taken over and also gets an "assisted seppuku" for himself, courtesy of Benawi.

* In the ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (anime)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' anime, {{spoiler|Wrath uses his alchemic powers to fuse with Sloth wanting to protect her. The problem? Wrath had also fused Sloth's weakness into himself. This allows Ed to finish off Sloth.}}

* ''[[Code Geass]]''

** Jeremiah Gottwald, upon hearing where Zero is during the battle of Narita, charges off to fight him, resulting in him being defeated and almost killed by Kallen's Radiant Wave Surger. In the [[Nightmare of Nunnally]] version of the battle, Alice goes after Zero, hoping to defeat him and be rewarded with a military or knight rank so that she can protect Nunnally.

** Suzaku Kururugi also qualifies for this trope, in so much as military command structure will allow him to practice it. He always runs head-first at the enemy in order to defeat them. However, he is a [[Deconstruction]] of this trope because he knows damn well the likely result of it, [[Death Seeker|and wants it to happen]].

* In one episode of ''[[Tokyo Mew Mew]]'', Masha tries attacking the [[Monster of the Week]] in an attempt to prove useful, getting captured as a result and causing the Mew Mews to spend the rest of the episode trying to get him back.

* In ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'', [[Idiot Hero|Nagi Springfield]] turns out to have acted like this all the damn time; his first reaction to just about any threat is to charge blindly at it. Of course, as he's quite possibly [[World's Strongest Man|the strongest]] [[Boring Invincible Hero|person alive]], it almost always works.

* ''[[Dragon Ball]]''

** [[The Messiah|Son Goku]] typically works in this fashion, at least in the original ''Dragon Ball'', where his plan usually consists of going off after an enemy that's hurt his friends on his own without any care in the world to whatever plan they might have set up, or in other words to simply pound people's faces in. This is most notably seen in the Red Ribbon Arc and especially the Piccolo Daimaou Arc, where Goku ignores a direct order from Master Roshi of all people to not rush off after the enemy.

** In ''Z'', he (and Piccolo) take this tack with Frieza, ignoring King Kai's warning against going off against Frieza.

* ''[[Kimba the White Lion]]'': Kimba can be a good planner when he tries to be and is usually successful when it comes to fighting, but it's a safe bet that he would rush out and attack/attempt to befriend the [[Villain of the Week]] and ignore the advice of his friends; this method cost him a few battles.

* ''[[Digimon]]''

** ''[[Digimon Adventure]]'': Tai has always been an [[Idiot Hero]], but he went through only a brief phase of this trope outright. Eventually the group came to the observation that a partner Digimon's tamer has to be in danger for them to evolve. So, as part of his increasingly desperate attempts to get Agumon to evolve to Perfect, he... runs straight into the battlefield. [[Gone Horribly Right|It works and he quickly learns not to do it again for a DAMN good reason]].

** Marcus of ''[[Digimon Savers]]'' is an outright example, to the point of leaping off highrise buildings to punch [[Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever|giant mons]]. Apparently, [[Catch Phrase|that's how a man lives]].

 

* Bob and Dave (especially Bob) in ''[[Knights of the Dinner Table]]''.

* Ares, [[Marvel Comics]]' God of War, once pointed out a list of thing like "white flags, taking prisoners, Geneva Convention thing and ''checking out if you have enough bullets before rushing into the battle''" to conclude that about those things his sister Athena cares. He's that other God of War. To be fair, he is the God of War as in "conflict", and Athena is Goddess of War as in "strategy". So it's in character for him; less in character for Athena to care about Geneva Convention and white flags, considering the original (Greek) myths. She probably doesn't; [[Axe Crazy|Ares]], being [[Sociopathic Hero|Ares]], probably just assumes that everything in war that he doesn't like must be her thing.

* [[Mark Waid]] once wrote that [[The Avengers (Comic Book)|The Avengers]]' [[Battle Cry]] is "Avengers Assemble". The [[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Fantastic Four]]'s is, "Johnny, wait!"

* In one ''[[Superman]]''/''[[Batman]]'' issue, the World's Finest are faced against "Doomstroke", a [[Fusion Dance]] of Doomsday and Deathstroke The Terminator. While Batman is wracking his brain trying to figure out what they should do, Superman roars, "We don't have time for strategy!" and punches him, [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|knocking out one of his teeth]]. Fortunately, this causes Doomstroke to retreat.

* [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] in an issue of ''Trinity''. The heroes are sent to the [[Mirror Universe]], and decide to liberate it. While Batman and [[Wonder Woman]] are trying to come up with a plan, Superman storms the Crime Syndicate's base. At first, the others think he did an idiotic move, but Supes beats them all and delivers their unconscious bodies. Superman explains that he deduced that the evil counterparts had grown complacent, as they had been ruling their world without any challenge for years. Also, as they killed their enemies right away, they never developed any real combat experience, while Superman did, since he always fights enemies who have an intent to kill him over and over again. It also helped that he, Batman, and Wonder Woman had had a mind-link put on them that allowed Supes to [[All Your Powers Combined|draw upon their skills and abilities]].

* As [[Deadpool]] once said: "F**k plans."

* Assassin and marksman Deadshot in the DCU sometimes acts like this. Somewhat explained by the fact that he has a death wish (or more accurately is apathetic about death). He can follow a plan, but if he sees his shot open, he'll take it [[Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?|without hesitation]]. Several [[Suicide Squad]] missions have been cut short by Lawton killing their target while the rest of the team was in the planning stage.

* ''[[Groo the Wanderer]]''

* Huntress, sometimes.

* Batman: "We need a plan of attack!" [[The Creeper]]: "I got a plan... ATTACK!"

* Woodrow "Woody" Van Chelton of ''[[Quantum and Woody]]'', whose solution to nearly every problem is to jump in with guns blazing.

 

 

* In ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Return of the King]]'', Merry and Pippin are the first to charge at the host of orcs coming out of Mordor. Luckily, the rest of the army quickly overtakes them.

* ''[[The Town]]'' ends with an incredibly stupid example of this. {{spoiler|The bank robbers have dressed up as paramedics. They take their loot to their getaway vehicle, which is an ambulance. The whole time they're surrounded by heavily armed SWAT teams that haven't recognized them yet. The ruse is working. They're about to get away. And then one of the robbers fires an M-16 through the ambulance window. Cue most of the bank robbers getting killed.}}

* ''[[Star Wars]]''

** ''Episode II: [[Attack of the Clones]]'': Anakin and Padme rush to Geonosis to rescue Obi-Wan, only to be captured themselves.

** Obi-Wan detailing a plan of attack against Dooku which Anakin doesn't wait to hear before charging in.

** He however learned from his mistake and doesn't go Rambo in ''[[Revenge of the Sith]]'', when they fought Dooku again.

'''Anakin:''' I was going to say that. }}

** Luke rushing off to face Vader at Cloud City without completing his training and over the protests of both Obi-Wan and Yoda.

** Subverted in ''[[Return of the Jedi]]''. When the Rebel team on Endor sees Paploo run off alone toward the shield generator, they think he's going to blow their element of surprise, but he actually creates a useful distraction by loudly stealing a speeder bike.

* The 2009 ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'' film has a brief "Leeroy" moment, when the [[Red Shirt]] pumps himself up for his fateful skydive onto the Romulan planetary drill.

* ''[[Paper Moon]]'' has a hilarious example. During most of the film, a father and his daughter work as conmen. His daughter is quite good, too. After a while, though, they get arrested by police. How do they escape? The Daughter just shouts RUN!!

* The ''Year One'' DVD includes a bonus feature where the cast plays out the Leeroy Jenkins skit, complete with some of the dialogue from the original machima.

* In ''[[The Bourne Series (film)|The Bourne Ultimatum]]'', {{spoiler|reporter Simon Ross deviates from instructions from Bourne on eluding the agents out to get him, and rushes out into the open where a sniper offs him with ease.}}

* More fun with Custer: This is the general depiction of the man in ''[[Night at the Museum]] 2''.

* ''[[Ghosts of Mars]]'': [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obIT1GcMzL0 "Come on, you mindless mutherfuckers!"]

* In ''[[Rob Roy]]'', a small group of Rob's clansmen are watching a large troop contingent burn a farm belonging to them. They see that the soldiers are too many to fight directly, so they prepare to draw back into the fog and continue to harry them. Then Rob's little brother Alisdair sees that the leader of the soldiers is the man who raped his sister-in-law. So he takes a shot at him from extreme long range and misses, which alerts the soldiers to the presence of the clansmen. Nearly all of the Scots are promptly butchered when the soldiers chase them.

* Deconstructed to an extent in ''[[The Hurt Locker]]'', where the adrenaline junkie main character insists his EOD team run into a series of darkened alleyways to attempt to find the insurgents behind a car bombing. Both of his teammates call him out on it, but since he outranks them they have to go anyway. The ensuing firefight nearly gets one of them killed.

* In ''[[Wild Wild West (film)|Wild Wild West]]'', West constantly ignores Gordon's planning and runs right into battle. Only after he causes them to run for their lives and runs out of other options does he ask for Gordon to work out a plan. Gordon doesn't take it too well.

'''Gordon:''' I can't be calm! Oh, no, no, no, no, I'm the "Master of the Mechanical Stuff"! And I have to help you! You, the master of the STUPID STUFF! }}

* [[Action Girl|Irene Adler]] gives us an example in the 2009 movie adaptation of ''[[Sherlock Holmes (film)|Sherlock Holmes]]'': When she, Holmes and Watson {{spoiler|go into the sewers beneath Parliament to disable Lord Blackwood's machine}}, Holmes and Watson begin to debate how to take down the many guards. They suddenly hear gunshots, and look up to see Irene already engaged in a firefight with the whole lot of them.

* In ''[[The Untouchables]]'' Eliot Ness and the rest of the Untouchables plan to catch a member of Capone's gang midway through a deal with the assistance of the Canadian Mounties who are meant to wait for a signal from the feds before charging, mid-deal gun shots are heard as the Mounties charge anyway, subverted though as they are able to achieve what they wanted to do.

* In ''[[The Avengers (film)|The Avengers]]'', [[Iron Man]] gives us this gem:

'''Iron Man:''' I ''have'' a plan - Attack. }}

* Averted in ''[[Blazing Saddles]]'' during the Mungo confrontation: "If you shoot him, you'll only make him mad."

 

* In the [[Cory Doctorow]] novel ''[[For the Win]]'', one of the only American characters in the book likes to make money by working with a group of Chinese gamers that help rich westerners with tough MMO battles for a living. Their "customer" in this case plays the trope completely straight, charging recklessly into the boss chamber and ruining the team's careful plans.

* In ''[[The Icemark Chronicles|The Cry of the Icemark]]'', some militia breaking ranks to pursue the enemy at the wrong moment results in {{spoiler|the loss of an entire elite regiment.}}

* In ''[[King Arthur|Le Morte d'Arthur]]'', Sir Gawaine starts a battle by ''beheading a Roman knight who insulted him at a parley''; the trope is subverted in that Gawaine survives and the battle is won.

* [[Shout-Out|Namechecked]] in [[Walter Jon Williams]]' ''Implied Spaces'': when Grax the Troll's battle cry turns out to be "Grax the Troll!!!!", the protagonist's cat remarks, "Not exactly 'Leeroy Jenkins', but I suppose it will do.".

* In ''[[Septimus Heap]]'', Jenna attacks Jakey Fry without a concern for not being seen by the pirates that are fighting above her.

 

* A truly unforeseen shout-out: The effective series finale of vampire show ''[[Moonlight]]'' has one of the main characters assaulting a federal transport while yelling, "LEE-ROOOOY JENKINS!"

* Captain America, ''[[Generation Kill]]''. "Engage those buildings, soldier. What are you waiting for? '''[[Attack! Attack! Attack!|Engage ENGAGE!!!]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhGIFLWadEU FOLLOW MY TRACERS!]'''

[[Invoked Trope|"We've got to get Captain America off the coms."]] }}

** Back in his army days, Mal from had a tendency to be this. Possibly as a result, hardly any of his squad members survived.

'''Zoë:''' ... Of course, there are other schools of thought. }}

** And in the movie, it's the always cool, competent Zoë of all people who does a minor version of this, abandoning the defensive line set up in order to fight {{spoiler|the Reavers}} hand to hand. {{spoiler|To be fair, she's obviously being affected by Wash's death}}. The sheer [[Death Seeker|death wish]] of this move horrifies even [[Dumb Muscle|Jayne]].

* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' features a whole species of Jenkinses in the Narns. The biggest instance is in the pivotal episode Severed Dreams, where Garibaldi declares to his team that they've reached the right spot to hold their ground against the imminent boarders. The Narns keep going; he shouts "Nuts!" and orders everyone to follow them. Described in the script as "But the Narns, being Narns, keep going."

* In an episode of ''[[My Name Is Earl]]'', Randy decides to stand up for his little brother against an angry mob.

''(Dives headlong into attacking mob)'' }}

* In ''[[Scrubs]]'', Laverne helps Carla break in Turk's car by shouting, "LAVERNNNNE ROBERRRRRRTS!!" and punching the window. To her dismay, Carla had the keys to Turk's car in the first place.

* Interestingly, this trope appeared in its modern form years before popularization via the internet. An episode of ''[[Matlock]]'' features Matlock's sidekick conducting a screaming charge (ultimately into a couch) with "TYYYYLER HUUUUUUUDSOOOOON!"

* Similarly, ''[[Psych]]'' has a villain named after the original Leeroy, whose name Shawn announces with the appropriate gusto.

** Chase often got into trouble in the third season because of his tendency to act on his own, especially when pursuing Jack to Mexico.

** Many plans that are laid out in detail that involve civilians or former terrorists fall apart when someone deviates from the plan and acts independently, like in the first season, when one of Senator Palmer's aides stabs the person she is supposed to be recording instead of excusing herself after learning of his planned rendezvous with a fellow conspiracy member. To be fair, this was that woman's [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]]. (It's [[Black and Gray Morality|that kind of show]].)

** This later causes another Leeroy moment when Jack Bauer poses as the murdered guy to meet the conspiracy member. As he waits in a cafe, one of the snipers who has a personal issue with Bauer begins to taunt him before being told to shut-up by CTU head George Mason. When the conspiracy member realizes Jack is not the guy he was supposed to meet, the sniper ignores all instructions to hold fire (they needed the guy alive) and fatally shoots the suspect causing a loud "DAMNIT!" from Jack Bauer.

* Barney Stinson from ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' does this in an episode. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSJ-Tb67QHI BARNEEEY AH-STIIIIIN-SAAAAHNNN!!]

** On occasion, Buffy show shades of this. But really, it's to be expected, considering that her '''job''' basically consists of two things; figuring out how to kill something, and doing so.

* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' season four has Peter rushing off to stop a madman with a gun when he has Rene's ability, in spite Claire's insistence that he should've sent her since she's the one that can't be hurt by bullets. Partially justified in that he's trying not to think about the fact that {{spoiler|Nathan}} is dead.

* Pretty bizarre considering the source, but ''[[Zeke and Luther]]'' has one of these coming from Nana Waffles. Even weirder considering the context, which... involves her playing an MMO with a few other people who are carefully planning out their strategy.

* In the season finale of ''[[Community]]'', For a Few Paintballs More: "VICKI!!!"

* The "real" Leeroy invades CNN's 2012 [http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-march-7-2012/indecision-2012---super-tuesday---endless-suffrage-2012 virtual Super Tuesday coverage] on ''[[The Daily Show]]''.

* Clark Kent from ''[[Smallville]]'' has an annoying habit of charging into a situation without checking the area for kryptonite or other anti-Kryptonian hazards.

 

* ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' has several "battle howls" a character could use. One of them, a signal that one was going to try something particularly daring, desperate, or deranged, was interpreted by younger werewolves as, roughly, "Hey, watch this!" and by older werewolves as "Back off, I'm gonna try something stupid!" On the bright side, if they pulled it off, they would often get a ''lot'' of Glory points.

** In 1st Edition, the Cavalier class in the ''Unearthed Arcana'' supplement was ''required'' to charge recklessly into battle, even if doing so interfered with or harmed his allies.

** The 3.5 character class [[Knight in Shining Armor|Knight]] is encouraged to act this way. Knights cannot make surprise attacks and gain bonuses for shouting challenges at foes, so the most effective tactic is to charge into a room and bellow out a challenge.

** In 4th Edition, there's actually an ''item'' that acts as a Leeroy: the Invulnerable Coat of Arnd, which goads its wearer into pulling increasingly bold and stupid stunts in the middle of battle and rewards him or her for doing so. The Coat goes back as far as First Edition, although artifacts in 1E didn't get fully detailed descriptions.

** If it's possible for an entire ''race'' to be made up of Leeroys, da Orks qualify: "You lot! Listen up, cos we got a proper scrap to look forward to now! This 'ere door's about to open, and when it does you will see wot we came here ta kill! Wot I want to see is a good 'ard charge! No fancy stuff! On yer feet! Check yer guns! Ready yer choppas! Last one out's a stinkin' panzy! ''WAAAGH!''" Of course, the orks being the [[Reality Warper|Orks]], this often WORKS. Also, this also means that when the Orks DO use a plan, it ALWAYS works, because no-one expects Orks to EVER have a plan. Former Tau Empire Shas'o Commander Farsight being the most notable example (though he did survive to become former Shas'O through abandoning the Tau Empire, which is otherwise unheard of among Tau).

** Also from ''Warhammer 40000'' we have the World Eaters Chaos Space Marines. Their "strategy" is to charge into battle blindly screaming "Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!" and waving chainaxes. This is due to the fact that their god, Khorne doesn't care whether blood flows from his enemies or his followers, just so long as it flows freely and profusely. The Khornate Berzerkers, being all [[One-Man Army|superhuman gods of war]], that 9/10 of these charges are usually complete successes goes to show what kind of place Warhammer 40,000 is, really.

*** Speaking of the Blood Angels, this trope is the reason they tend to plan their tactics around aggressive offensive actions centered around their assault squads carving a breach into the enemy line for the rest of their force to wedge into. Because any one of them can potentially be overcome with [[Unstoppable Rage]] when the [[Genetic Memory]] of his primarch's death flashes into his mind, a focus on direct attack means that their plans do not get compromised if one marine [[Attack! Attack! Attack!|goes charging ahead to get to grips with the foe]].

*** Lone Wolves, ironically enough, also have Leeroy Jenkins tendencies due to the fact that they're the last members of their "packs" and want nothing more than to restore their honor by dying gloriously in battle. In fact, to reflect this, they have the Special Rule "A Glorious Death" that actually ''denies'' the opposing player a kill point if the Lone Wolf dies in battle, instead granting the point if he survives to the end of the game.

*** Blood Claws that never get over their Leeroy Jenkins mentality are actually given warbikes and jump packs to make them more effective with it.

* One survival suggestion in ''[[Paranoia (game)|Paranoia]]'' is to trick ''everyone else'' into playing the Leeroy.

* ''[[GURPS]]'' has the disadvantage "On the Edge". You have to make a control roll to avoid doing something stupid. Also Impulsiveness, Berserk and Bloodlust.

 

** Makuta Icarax doesn't like the complex plan that Teridax has thought up to conquer the universe and thinks that everything would be easier if the Brotherhood of Makuta simply demolished everything in its path:

** While Icarax's attitude has gotten him seriously hurt a few times, he at least hasn't endangered his fellow Makuta or their plans yet. Toa Vakama, however, is another story: in his determination to make a rescue, he refused to acknowledge that something was Very Wrong and wouldn't make time for little things like "caution". He ended up marching his team straight into the enemy base, where they got captured, mutated into half-beast freaks, and nearly killed. His team wasn't happy, and they didn't let it go until they realized their griping was helping to lead him to a [[Face Heel Turn]].

** Icarax ultimately ''inverts'' the trope when he tries to throw a wrench into Teridax's [[The Plan]]. {{spoiler|Teridax's supporters kill him for his effort -- but when the plan succeeds, said supporters have suddenly [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|Outlived Their Usefulness]]...}}

 

* Leeroy might've popularized the term. But in actuality, he was preceded by none other than Grom Hellscream in ''[[Warcraft]] III''. In the Orc campaign, Thrall was on his way to Stonetalon Peak, trying to avoid contact with humans. Grom suddenly declared that he could wait no longer and that the humans needed to be killed, and so charges off with his own army to the human encampment, at which point you're basically forced to fight the humans as well. Particularly annoying is that if Hellscream used more than five of his 30-odd troops, he could obliterate them all by himself. The dialogue, in a [[Laconic|nutshell]]:

'''Thrall:''' Oh my God, he just ran in... SAVE HIM! }}

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]''

** One quest has you escort a group of soldiers. Their commander charges into battle shouting, "Okay guys, let's do this!", a line from the original video.

** Saurfang the Younger tries this tactic against ''[[Big Bad|The]] [[Evil Overlord|Lich]] [[Physical God|King]]'': "Enough talk! Let it be finished!" It doesn't work.

* Any game where [[Escort Mission|you have to protect someone]]. Usually they will be too eager to [[Too Dumb to Live|blindly run into your line of fire or try to take on enemies that are clearly stronger than them]].

* ''Justice League Heroes'' has an entire level in which ''Superman'' becomes the Leeroy. He's so anxious to get revenge on Darkseid (after an earlier bit of [[Cutscene Incompetence]] on the part of the Justice League) that he goes charging headlong into a fortress and not bothering to defend himself. This becomes a bad [[Escort Mission]] in which the player has to try to protect Superman until the end of the level. Of course, since this is [[Superman]] we're talking about, sometimes it's less of an "escort mission" and more of a "just stay out of the way while Kal-El does his [[Unstoppable Rage]]" mission.

* ''[[Fallout]]''

** [[Mass Effect 3|The third game]] does the same with the inclusion of Nova, the character drops their shields to do a powerful ground slam. In multiplayer this can be a problem: target the wrong enemy or one that biotic charge\nove won't work on or don't finish the job and you're hosed. Your teammates might rightly be reluctant to help you here.

*** (However a skilled Vanguard is a [[Lightning Bruiser]] easily capable of dishing out more damage than the rest of his/her team ''combined'')

* ''[[Halo (series)|Halo]]''

** A page from the 2006 Halo Graphic Novel has an L. Jenkins charging into the enemy while screaming, as a plasma grenade barely misses his helmet, and his squadmates are all staring at him.

** Jun from ''[[Halo: Reach]]'' qualifies. Especially in the [[Sniping Mission|third level]]. See that Jackal with its back on you? Those sleeping Grunts will never know what hit them- aaaand you see Jun yelling and firing at them.

* ''[[City of Villains]]''/''[[City of Heroes]]''

* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]''

** There is also a similar NPC in ''[[The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion]]'' who blindly rushes into a dungeon trap after requesting your help to save his fallen comrades. With a spot of luck he can be saved, although the programmers never intended this to happen and he will just stand around doing nothing.

** Special mention must go to Berich Inian, who fights alongside you in The Battle for Castle Kvatch - or, rather, who runs off immediately in to the largest group of Daedra he can find the moment you're out in the open.

** And an extra special mention (quite possibly the trophy of this trope) to Farwil Indarys, the foolhardy son of the Count of Cheydinhal, who rushed blindly into an [[Hell Gate|Oblivion Gate]] with a group of Knights and got all but one of his comrades killed. The player then has to [[Escort Mission|babysit the two of them]] until the Gate has been shut. Farwill will bumrush every single enemy in sight, and [[Too Dumb to Live|will even follow them off cliffs and into the lava below]]. Pretty much the only certain way to make sure he gets home in one piece is to use a cheat code to turn off the combat AI and just let him follow you to the Sigil Stone.

* ''[[Team Fortress 2]]''

** Despite the Pyro's intention as a class for ambushes, flanking and hit-and-run skirmishes, many players of Pyro ([[Useless Useful Stealth|when they aren't spy-checking]]) seem to think that the class is for Leeroy Jenkins-style assaults on the enemy defences. Which, unless you're being Ubercharged, it isn't.

** Spies occasionally fall under this, when they will run straight up to an enemy sentry gun and sap it even when the Engineer or other enemies are standing ''right there''. Other times a Spy will back stab the first enemy they come across even if it will drop their disguise in the middle of the enemy team and there are better targets available.

** Other classes also tend to get more reckless than usual when being healed by a Medic (getting an HP cap boost AND a continual stream of healing does make you tougher to kill, but not invincible until the ubercharge pops).

** And on the Infected side, you have Hunter-users who insist on pouncing when the survivors other than the victim are nearby and not distracted by a mob of normal zombies. Or the Boomers who absolutely must suicide when they very well can hang back and recharge their puke.

** Similarly, there will be Hunter players who insist on getting to the highest rooftop possible for the sake of making a 25 point damage pounce when they could have worked with the rest of the team to set up an ambush. Then there are Boomer and Spitter players who will charge at the survivors in the open and either get killed or hit one survivor and then be killed when they could have sniped at the survivors through a window or on a rooftop. On top of this, Tank players who have a case of the Leeroy will blindly run into the survivors' line of fire while trying to chase and attack them instead of taking cover so the rest of the zombie team can slow the survivors down.

** Similarly, there are guys who will shoot a car that is near the safe house and will stay outside to kill the incoming horde or during the finale when the rescue has arrived, they will stay behind and keep killing zombies until they run out of ammo or get pounced.

** ''Left 4 Dead 2'' introduces the Grenade Launcher and Chainsaw. Both are powerful weapons but can also cause lots of friendly fire damage if not handled properly. A good player will usually have minimal friendly fire with these weapons. A leeroy will most likely take someone's health from the green to the red or incapacitate them with the said weapons.

*** Then there's Edge charging Rubicante. Luckily for him, Rubicante [[Noble Demon|is merciful]].

*** The endgame probably also counts, when {{spoiler|1=Golbez and FuSoYa decide that they can handle Zemus on their own}}, without the help of the player party. By the way, this is ''after'' the parties in question realized that they're all on the same side. To be fair, though, {{spoiler|1=Golbez and FuSoYa make short work of Zemus, and weren't expecting [[Giant Space Flea From Nowhere|Zeromus]] to emerge from the corpse}}.

** Rafa from ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' on the Riovanne Rooftop castle where [[Escort Mission|you're supposed to protect her]]. Stories abound of people having their Rafa charge in and promptly get killed, all before the player even gets a single turn in.

* In ''[[BattleTech]]: The Crescenthawk's Inception'', as you hired pilots, you would have to watch each new one to see how good they were (abilities varied from game to game). The worst of the bunch invariably charged with their very expensive and difficult to repair 'Mechs right into enemy squads.

** The only place he ''always'' obeys orders is on the final mission set in ''[[Wing Commander (video game)|Wing Commander]] III''. Anywhere else, anything but "break and attack" often gets ignored.

** He's bad enough in the original that, at one point, your CO authorizes you to fire at him if his recklessness ends up jeopardizing the mission.

'''Col. Halcyon:''' Guns, (callsign). Save your missiles for important targets. }}

* ''[[Baldur's Gate|Baldurs Gate]]''

** Only after the banter where he's asked Aerie to be his witch. Mazzy and Keldorn also make Minsc go berserk if they die.

** If you get Nalia he'll ask her to be his witch instead, but he'll always choose Aerie over her. He'll still go berserk if Nalia dies, though.

* Enforced in ''[[Samurai Warriors|Samurai Warriors 3]]'', in Yukimura Sanada's final campaign mission. After Hideyori Toyotomi is assasinated by Hanzô Hattori, Yukimura himself declares the battle lost, and the victory conditions are changed to only Yukimura (the player)'s survival. Yukimura must then charge alone to Ieyasu Tokugawa's camp and kill him by himself. This was also done in the first game.

* ''[[Supreme Commander]]'' features a variation of this, wherein the character himself is not a Leeroy Jenkins per se (the ACU is the primary builder and thus doesn't leave the base), but his tactics have every hallmark of the trope. In the fifth mission, you are joined by a fellow commander named Fletcher. This blatantly racist jackass should already be grating on your nerves, having been spouting his nonsense in every mission thus far, and his appearance on the battlefield doessn't help. The first thing he does is get enough mass extractors and energy generators running to let him build Fatboys. Then he'll do that. ''And nothing else.'' This retard will do absolutely nothing to defend himself (no defense towers, no shield towers, nothing) short of giving his ACU a shield, and your opponent will exploit this. You are expected to keep this bastard alive. To make things even more insulting (but also very satisfying), {{spoiler|you have to kill him in the next mission when he finally goes nuts}}.

** If you take too long to defeat the Sector X boss, Slippy will try to attack it only to be swatted aside and sent hurling off to Titania, forcing you to go rescue him in the next mission and ruining your chances of entering Venom the good way.

* ''[[Syphon Filter]]'' has an Agency operative named Jenkins who was killed along with the rest of his squad in Washington Park.

* ''[[Soul Nomad and The World Eaters]]''. Levin has the tendency to, as Gig put it, "find tornadoes of crap to jump into", and goes charging off without a second thought in many cases, whether it's to find his sister or pursue an enemy. The bad news is that he always attracts trouble doing this, and you have to clean up after him. {{spoiler|[[It Gets Worse|The worse news]]: [[Magnificent Bastard|it turns out he led all of these guys back to you]] ''on purpose''. When Gig says it's man-cow's fault, it really is. [[Funny Aneurysm Moment|And you will hate him for it]].}}

* ''[[Valkyria Chronicles]]''

** Edy Nelson's embodiment of this is what kicks off the Edy Detachment DLC, where she chased after Imperial soldiers "screaming like a banshee" and gets herself and a few squadmates stuck behind enemy lines. They stumble upon a village under attack by more Imperial forces, so of course Edy rallies the group with her to go defend it. Towards the end of the mission, she hears that Rosie's been shot, so she runs across the battlefield to get to her, [[The Only One Allowed to Defeat You|because she can't die until Edy surpasses her on the stage]].

* ''[[Etrian Odyssey]] III: The Drowned City'' has Agata, a [[Highly-Visible Ninja]] of Guild Mumotsumi. Traveling through the Yggdrasil Labyrinth can be difficult enough with a full party of five; Agata, meanwhile, likes to go charging in and leave the rest of his guild behind, heedless of the [[Beef Gate|FOEs]] and other dangers. Depending on how you handle him, {{spoiler|this has grave consequences for either him or his partner Hypatia}}.

* Sheva of ''[[Resident Evil 5]]'' will often run towards large targets and fire her pistol at them, wasting her ammo and constantly costing her her life. This will eat up precious healing items and time, and sometimes she'll be far too distracted halfway across a stage with shooting at an unecessary enemy to come and heal you if you're dying or she may get herself stuck or killed on her way over. This is fully remedied if you're playing with a human character, and this can cause [[Fake Difficulty]] in certain areas.

* Zero pulls one of these in ''[[Mega Man X]]''.

''([[Police Are Useless|Swedish cop goes flying]])'' }}

* ''[[Call of Duty]]''

*** run into various parts of the map without proper backup or weapons, expecting you to save him. This will kill a team quickly as well: this troper has found that it doesn't really matter how much ammo you waste trying to save Leeroy, they'll just die again in 30 seconds. Unfortunately, due to the poor hosting system that COD:BOZ has, this can lead to Leeroy attempting to hijack the game: threatening to quit and end the game for everyone if they let said Leeroy die.

 

* [[Truth in Television]]: in real life there were quite a few battles that the losing side could have won if some of the troops didn't attack or charge before the order was given.

* See, for example, the Battle of Bannockburn. The English army included large numbers of archers, who could potentially have massacred the Scottish schiltrons with little difficulty. Instead, the English knights charged en masse and were slaughtered.

* [[Older Than Print]]: At the Battle of Hastings in 1066 a group of Norman soldiers, fearing that their [[Magnificent Bastard]] William the Conquerer (who, by the way, [[Bastard Bastard|really]] ''[[Bastard Bastard|was]]'' [[Bastard Bastard|a bastard]]) had died, began to break and run. A detachment from the Saxon shield wall ran after them, and was promptly annihilated when William ripped off his helmet to show the fleeing knights he was alive, rallying them. Then the Normans decided to try a couple of fake retreats. [[Too Dumb to Live|Each time, the Saxons fell for it hook, line and sinker, whittling away their forces bit by bit.]] Had the Saxons wised up and held their shield wall, William may have had to back down, and the course of English history might have been radically different.<ref>Harold's brothers, who were commanding the flank of the army, were both killed, leaving the flanks both enraged and leaderless. Harold himself had used the feigned retreat only a week earlier to defeat the armies of some rebellious Earls, allowing him to face William with his whole army, and presumably would have recognized the tactic if used by his opponent. But Harold was too far away to realise what was happening on the flanks, meaning by the time he could've found out that the flanks of his armies were chasing the Norman army down the hill, it would've been too late to command them to stop.</ref>

* It occasionally works the other way, too. At the Battle of Missionary Ridge, the original plan was to stop and regroup, but the soldiers in the front line simply kept going. Considering what happened to ''start'' the second phase of Missionary Ridge in the first place, it makes the fact that it ended as a Union victory even more awesome:

'''General Phil Sheridan:''' ''[[It's Personal|THAT WAS UNGENEROUS!]] '''I'LL TAKE YOUR GUNS FOR THAT!''''' }}

** Encouraged by Sheridan's shouting, his soldiers charge up the hill towards the Confederate guns, shouting "[[And This Is For|Chickamauga!]]" as though the name itself were a weapon (the recent battle there was a Union defeat, so it was a cry for vengeance). This reckless advance worries the commanding Union general, Ulysses S. Grant.

'''One of Grant's Aides:''' No one. They started up without orders. When those fellows get started, all Hell can't stop them! }}

* General George Armstrong Custer may or may not be an example, depending on what interpretation people have of him; in ''Lost Triumph'' by Tom Carhart, Custer was a beloved and capable leader, particularly at Gettysburg where his unit prevented the reinforcements from arriving on scene that would have turned Pickett's Charge from a colossal screw up into a gamewinning masterstroke. Custer was a general at 26. It would seem [[Never Live It Down|except for Little Big Horn]], there's little evidence that his career was EVER marked by a "Leeroy" moment.

** The same thing happened at the Battle on Minden (1759), when a misunderstood order sent a brigade of British infantry advancing on the French lines, and despite everything the French could throw at them, won the day.

* Partially subverted at the Battle of Omdurman when the 21st Lancers charged charged what they assumed to be a few hundred dervishes, only to find they'd run into about 2,500 of them. Fully subverted in that they still won, despite being outnumbered >6-1 (of the 400 strong 21st Lancers, 70 men and 120 horses were lost).

* Horatio Nelson, at the Battle of Copenhagen (1801), had something of a Leeroy Jenkins moment. While leading the advance squadron, several of his ships ran aground and his commanding Admiral ordered him to abandon the assault. While trying to read the signal flags, he purposely put his spyglass to his blind eye, said "I really do not see the signal," kept attacking, and won the battle.

** This one worked out fairly well though.

* Gerhard von Blücher, Prussian marshal during the Napoleonic Wars (the one that saved wellington at Waterloo), was famous for this. His nickname was ''Marschall Vorwärts'' (=Marshal Forward).

* At the Battle of Ain Jalut, a Mongol army that really should have known better (since it was a favourite tactic of theirs) charged blindly after some fleeing Mameluke horsemen and were totally destroyed. Especially painful since it was the only Mongol army for about a thousand miles at the time, and had been specifically placed there to keep the Mamelukes in check.

* Hitler had this going several ways. He picked on Czechoslovakia, which scared his generals as the Czechs had a fair shot at beating the German army in the condition it was...but got away with it because the rest of Europe abandoned the Czechs and their morale collapsed. He went to war with France and England about two years before his navy and army thought they were ready for it; the army wanted more time to reequip with the Panzer III, and the navy projected a need for about 120 submarines to win the war, but only had 42. He topped it by attacking Russia before he'd knocked England out of the war or worked out how to actually use all that extra industrial output and manpower in occupied Europe, which might have given a him a fair shot at the Russians. He then topped that by declaring war on America just as the Russians started their first round of winter counterattacks, thereby pitting Germany against not one but two enemies it was incapable of defeating.

** In fact, the Germans had bitten off more than they could chew even before they attacked the USA. As early as 1941, Fritz Todt led a committee of Germany's best industrialists, and they found that unless Germany ''doubled'' her industrial output, British and Soviet industrial power would leave her for dead. The entry of the USA into the war just sealed the deal.

* The Fort Hood Shooting, in which Kimberly Munley (who was praised as a hero by the media) rushed ahead and managed to get herself shot up and had to be bailed out by her partner Mark Todd who shot the shooter 5 times and disarmed him.

* Hell, terrorism in general: You'll get captured or killed, and more than likely you'll turn more people against your cause than toward it.

* JNA at Vukovar. Sending tanks into city with no infantry support? If it isn't stupid, I don't know what is...

* During the English Civil War, King Charles' nephew Prince Rupert became infamous for this. His wing of cavalry would charge, break through the Parliamentary lines - and then keep right on going, often for several miles, chasing a few scattered Roundheads. This worked well enough at Edge Hill, the first major battle of the war, but by the time of Marston Moor and Naseby the Parliamentary armies had learned to just let Rupert's men charge and chase a few of their number down - while the remainder regrouped and went back into a battle which had now lost a third of the Royalist army. This was a large part of the reason why the Royalists were crushed in those two battles, and by extension a major reason why they lost the whole war.

* The Battle of Adrianople, with the forces of the Fourth Crusade, led by Baldwin of Flanders and Louis of Blois, versus the Bulgarian-Vlakh-Kuman army of tsar Kaloyan, ended like this. Louis of Blois had just recovered from an illness that had left him unable to participate in the Fourth Crusade's conquest of Constantinople, and he was overeager to show his stuff. When the Kuman cavalry broke and ran, Louis charged willy-nilly after them, with Baldwin chasing Louis trying to stop him. The Kumans then encircled them. Louis died defending Baldwin, who was then captured and eventually killed in prison.

** This actually worked in Olds' favor, if only because the Germans were still trying to form up and get organized. The sky was full of fighters, and only a small number of them were enemies. The rest were confused and panicked friendlies who were dodging around every which way trying to figure out if ''they'' were [[Paranoia Fuel|the next target]] of this phantom attacker.

 

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{{reflist}}

[[Category:This Index Means Trouble]]

[[Category:Character Flaw Index]]

[[Category:Video Game Tactical Index]]

[[Category:Trope Names From Memes]]