Mama Bear: Difference between revisions
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Sometimes overlaps with [[Apron Matron]], and is a natural overlap for a [[Team Mom]]. Can be a cause of [[Let's Get Dangerous]], showing that the sweet and caring mother figure is [[Not So Harmless]]. May be a [[Knight Templar Parent]]. Provides both simple and believable way to switch someone between "[[Badass]]" and [[Moe Moe|more "cute"]] modes without compromising character as either. After all, if [[It's Personal]]...
If an older sibling is the one who takes up the role,
Related to [[Beware the Nice Ones]] and [[Berserk Button]]. See also the non-human counterpart, [[Monster Is a Mommy]]. Not to be confused with [[Everything's Worse with Bears]] (unless you're dealing with a ''literal'' '''Mama Bear'''). The [[Violently Protective Girlfriend]] is a much younger form of this trope that applies when the mate is in danger. Evil characters can use this too; after all, [[Even Evil Has Loved Ones]]. A particular Subtrope is the [[Badass and Child Duo]] which can take the form of a female badass protecting an orphaned, unrelated young child, [[Papa Wolf|though male badasses]] are more common.
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** Most recently we have Portgas D. Rouge, the mother of Ace. {{spoiler|To escape detection by Marines searching for children being born at that time in an attempt to find the child of Gold Roger, Rouge withheld giving birth and bore her baby in her womb for ''twenty months'' before finally having him. [[Death by Childbirth|The act ultimately killed Rouge]], but allowed Ace (who would take up her surname instead of his father's) to grow up in relative safety under the care of Garp and alongside his grandson, Luffy.}}
** Despite having been an [[Ill Girl]], Kaya is this towards Usopp's pirates.
* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'': Izumi is practically Ed and Al's second mother. She barges into Greed's hideout to rescue Al after taking down one of the homunculus' cronies. Add to that her furious introduction and, well...
** The manga and the ''Brotherhood'' anime series bring us Olivier Mila Armstrong, who may be a [[Jerkass]] [[Social Darwinist]], [[Hidden Heart of Gold|but one of her]] [[Berserk Button]]s [[A Father to His Men|is to see her subordinates in danger.]] [[media:OMA-MamaBear.jpg|Lampshaded in this screenshot!]]
* And then there's Misae Nohara from ''[[Crayon Shin-chan]]''. Poor Shinnosuke, poor Hiroshi!
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** Werewolf mom Jetta when her son Pojo is abducted. Then again, not only is she a rather traumatized individual of a species ''bred'' to be violent killers, she is also the ''only'' female capable of her species capable of having children, and Pojo is her newborn, first child. All things considered, her reaction was one of thoughtful consideration, really.
* The female Dr. Light proved her Mama Bear status in print, in an alternate timeline in a recent issue of ''[[Booster Gold]]'', by killing the evil Max Lord for killing her kids. And thus, [[Fanon]] becomes semi-[[Canon]]: ''Don't mess with Kimiyo Hoshi's children!!'' In the main timeline, when the [[Blackest Night|superpowered zombie]] Dr Arthur Light threatened her children, Dr Light was able to {{spoiler|create a bright and powerful enough light to ''completely atomize him''}}.
* One issue of ''[[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Fantastic Four]]'' had Reed and Susan's daughter Valeria caught in the middle of a rampage created by Thundra, the Absorbing Man, and a mind-controlled Ben Grimm and She-Hulk. She's about to be squished when Sue shows up, already in a bad mood. Cue the resulting stomping of four of the most powerful superhumans on Earth. Made even better when Reed and Johnny show up...and Reed restrains Johnny from trying to help Sue, because he knows that she's not going to need any.
** Sue could practically be the goddess of this trope. In the ''[[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Fantastic Four]] Vs. the [[X-Men]]'' miniseries, the team is nearly torn apart when an old diary of Reed's seems to imply that he caused the accident that transformed them into the FF on purpose. It's Sue that deduces the diary is a trap laid by Dr. Doom years before. She warns Doom that a lioness is "never as dangerous as when protecting cub, and den, and mate." She then asks Doom if he's ever considered just what would happen if she decided to project an invisible force-field ''inside'' his body...and then expand it.
* In ''[[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]]'', Adeline Wilson takes this to a pretty scary level. After her husband, [[Career Killer|Slade]] lands their son Jericho in a hostage situation (that ends with their child being rendered permanently mute due to his throat being slit), Adeline shoots Slade in the head. Another, even more extreme example (Though it may not count since [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|she had just gained super powers that made her so psycho]]) occurred when she tried to destroy every super powered person in the '''world''' to {{spoiler|avenge Jericho's death.}}
* Threatening/killing their children/adopted children is one of the few things that can tempt a DCU hero, either [[Papa Wolf|male]] or female, that normally follows [[Thou Shalt Not Kill]] to, well, kill. When [[Black Canary]]'s adopted daughter Sin {{spoiler|apparently}} died during a kidnapping attempt by the League of Assassins, Dinah went ''berserk'' and nearly killed Merlyn, the mastermind of the scheme.
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* Getting her entire wedding party ambushed and blown away by Bill and his assassins was bad enough. Getting the ever-loving crap beaten out of her by the assassins, followed by a bullet in the head from Bill himself, was bad enough. But when the Bride finally gets out of her coma after four years and discovers that the child that she was carrying is gone (and apparently dead), she decides to...well...''[[Kill Bill]]''.
** Also, The Bride may be a [[Dark Action Girl]], but she does ''not'' like it when children {{spoiler|(like Nikki and the ultimately alive BB)}} or teenagers {{spoiler|(like Gogo or the young yakuza she spares)}} are caught in violent affairs. And she won't hesitate to say it.
* Ellen Ripley of the ''[[Alien (franchise)|Alien]]'' series was always a competent character with a decent survival instinct. Threaten her quasi-adoptee girl Newt and then, well, she's duct-taping weapons together to make a [[
** Doubles as an example of [[The Hecate Sisters]]. And considering that Ripley had killed a number of the Queen's offspring as well, it qualifies as a ''Mama Bear Showdown''.
** Subverted in ''[[Alien (franchise)|Alien 4]]'', where the [[Half-Human Hybrid]] Queen orders her offspring to kill one of their own to have its acidic blood dissolve a way out of the cell. The [[Nightmare Fetishist]] scientist is dismayed to see the Xenomorphs show such [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|human behavior]]. Also, Ripley {{spoiler|abuses her newfound [[Half-Human Hybrid]] status, killing Xenomorphs that are downright affectionate towards her.}}
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== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
* ''[[Firefly (TV series)|Firefly]]'': River toward the later episodes and the movie: "My turn"; "no power in the 'verse can stop me".
** In "Objects in Space", the Tams are Mama Bear and [[Papa Wolf]] - to each other.
** Every female on Serenity is a Mama Bear to Kaylee - Zoe rips Mal a new one for hurting her feelings, River takes out three Alliance soldiers with her eyes closed after Kaylee is too scared to do so herself...the only exception is Inara, who seems happier to baby Kaylee and brush her hair. Moral - don't. mess. with. Kaylee. It will NOT end well.
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* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'': Janet Frasier gets this way when her adopted daughter Cassandra is undergoing a mutation courtesy of Nirrti, going so far as to threaten the Goa'uld at gunpoint to fix Cassandra.
** Nirrti was still unwilling to help at first, even with the gun to her head. Then Hammond informed her that Frasier was Cassandra's mother. Nirrti got a lot more cooperative after that.
* Brought up in an episode of ''[[CSI: Crime Scene Investigation]]'', when the team is discussing a recent case where a man was killed on a plane by the passengers when he went berserk and tried to open the plane door.
{{quote|'''Nick:''' Do you think you could ever take a life in that situation?
'''Catherine:''' ''*answering instantly*'' I could.
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* The [[BBC 3]] Program ''[[Being Human (UK)|Being Human]]'': {{spoiler|when Annie entered the warehouse full of old, and powerful vampires and screamed "GIVE ME BACK MY FUCKING BABY" and defeated the old ones and then to save the world actually BLEW UP the child in question.}} Now that is motherhood.
* [[Action Mom|JJ]] in ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' beautifully demonstrated in the season seven finale that you don't ''ever'' threaten Henry or Will. That UnSub had it coming.
* Deconstructed in ''[[Beautiful World (TV series)|Beautiful World]]'', where the mothers of the bullies do some ugly, ugly things in defense of their sweet darling boys.
== [[Music]] ==
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== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
* ''[[Rose Is Rose]]'' played this trope completely straight with a Sunday strip, featuring Rose transformed into a "Mama Bear" to symbolize her overprotective nature before she meets Pasquale's new babysitter. However, Rose relaxes when she opens the door she finds that the prospective sitter is apparently a Mama Bear as well.
* In one old ''[[Garfield]]'' strip, the protagonist is on Jon's family farm, where he spies a baby chicken - he chases it, only to chase it straight to its mother and ''many'' other adult chickens. [[This Is Gonna Suck|"This isn't good,"]] he mutters, right before they beat him up.
== [[Oral Tradition]], [[Folklore]], Myths and Legends ==
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** Unfortunately, she {{spoiler|dies mere moments later}}. But it's the thought that counts.
** Lightning gets a [[Promotion to Parent]] for her younger sister, who gets kidnapped and [[Fate Worse Than Death|turned into a L'Cie.]] Lightning is a [[Super Soldier]] military woman who blows up a train, decimates a military unit, hijacks equipment to break into an ancient temple, and takes on a god-like being to rescue her ''in the first hour of the game''.
* ''[[Street Fighter]]'':
** Crimson Viper in ''[[Street Fighter IV]]'', likely the only female fighter to actually be a mother, supporting her daughter is pretty much her entire motivation for fighting M. Bison's evil organization.
** Also, series regular Chun Li acts like this towards her adoptive children (and children in general), and in ''Alpha'', nearly ''murders'' Bison (as in, ''with a gun'') after discovering what he's doing to the Dolls.
* Jade, the heroine of ''[[Beyond Good & Evil (video game)|Beyond Good and Evil]]'' (no relation to [[Mortal Kombat| this one]]), operates a friendly shelter for war orphans, whom she views as her "children." In the opening sequence of the game, a band of [[Alien Invasion|evil aliens]] attempt to kidnap the children from the shelter. Naturally, very bad things happen to said aliens. {{spoiler|Also, near the end of the game, all of the children get kidnapped. After working her way through a [[Heroic BSOD]], her resolve goes [[Up to Eleven]], and not a force in the galaxy will stop her from fighting to get her kids back.}}
* [[Hooker with a Heart of Gold|Lauren Winter]] from ''[[Heavy Rain]]'' couldn't save her son from the Origami Killer, but swears on her son's grave to kill the man who did. {{spoiler|And in one ending, she does just that.}}
* Juno in ''[[Soul Nomad and The World Eaters]]'' is ''very'' devoted to her adopted son Penn—considerably moreso than the child's biological parent. In {{spoiler|the Demon Path}} this devotion takes on a whole new level of fanaticism when {{spoiler|Juno demands Penn's return after he joins team evil, upon which Revya states that they didn't really want him in the first place}}.
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* Mary Barrows (or Burroughs) from ''[[Clock Tower]]'' is a villainous example: She is the mother of two extremely disturbed children, Bobby and Dan (their conception is heavily implied to be the result of occult work), and is very protective of them, to the extent that she is perfectly willing of killing Jennifer and three other orphans she adopted just to prevent them from killing them, and also intended to murder Jennifer in one of the endings specifically because the latter killed Bobby and Dan, but ended up being killed herself.
* Palutena in [[Kid Icarus: Uprising]] has shown signs of being one toward Pit especially in later chapters of the game. {{spoiler|By the end of chapter 21, when Pit saved Dark Pit from Chaos Kin, he had his wings burned as a result. Palutena is in a state of shock of [[My God, What Have I Done?|what happened]] given that Pit might die. What does she do? Have Dark Pit go to the spring of time and dip Pit's wings into the water and bring him back to life. In Viridi's own words, Palutena is willing to go down into the Underworld and ''cheat death'' just to save her precious Captain (who she might see as a son depending on interpretation.}}
* Felicia in ''[[Darkstalkers]]'', towards children in general; she even uses her tournament winnings in one game to open an [[Orphanage of Love]].
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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** This is the sweet-tempered [[Housewife]] who saved her daughter ''from an erupting volcano''. After the [[Straw Feminist|"feminist"]] [[Intrepid Reporter]] that Lisa admired [[Kick the Dog|abandoned little Lisa to her luck.]]
** In "The Great Wife Hope", Marge ends up fighting the guy in charge of a shallow pastiche of Ultimate Fighting. She gets one-punched to the floor, Bart comes to her aid, and when her opponent picks up Bart and threatens to hit him, she growls, [[Punctuated! For! Emphasis!|"That's... my... SON!"]] and proceeds to beat up the guy. Do ''' NOT F***''' with Marge.
** ''Especially'' in the non-canon "Treehouse of Horror" shorts where she is free to kill in order to do so. In XXXIV, when Bart is accidentally [[Trapped in TV Land| turned into an NFT]] - and quickly becomes the most sought after one on the internet - Marge turns ''herself'' into one in order to save him. She quickly learns that the block chain is actually a block ''train'' and that she has to make herself just as a valuable in order to access the car where Bart is, and to do that she has to fight her way past other NFTs.<ref>For those who like to keep track of the kill-count for a character, the episode conveniently has an onscreen counter here, giving Marge a kill-count of ''727 by the end of the skit!''</ref> This quickly turns into a [[Take That]] to the whole NFT industry, as she has to kill some of the most notorious NFTs, with some [[Self Deprecating Humor]] of the show thrown in, as she also defeats Itchy, Scratchy, and Poochie.
* On ''[[The Fairly OddParents]]'', Wanda will get violent if either Timmy or [[Cousin Oliver|Poof]] are threatened.
** Mrs. Turner has her moments of Mama Bear, too, in spite of her usual condition of [[Parental Neglect|neglectful parent]].
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