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Badass Boast/Real Life: Difference between revisions
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* [[Josip Broz Tito|Josip Broz "Tito"]] once sent [[Josef Stalin|Stalin]] a telegram which read:
{{quote|"Stop sending men to try and kill me. If you don't, I will send one to kill you. I will not need to send another."}}
* 14th century French noblewoman-turned-pirate-admiral Jeanne de Clisson, whose husband was betrayed and executed for treason by the French crown, to the sole survivor she always made sure to leave after taking a French ship:
{{quote|"Tell the King of France that the Lioness of Brittany is coming for him."}}
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZsa-4nh040&feature=related Brian] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eajnO_O5UO8&feature=player_embedded Dawkins].
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** Warned nothing, one of his ships (The monitor Tecumpseh) had just struck one and sunk. This caused the ship in front of his to stop, right under the guns of a fort. The historical quote is properly two separate quotes: "Damn the Torpedoes!" to the Captain of the Brooklyn (the guy who had stopped), and "Four bells" (which was the naval order for maximum power) to the Captain of the ship tied alongside, the Hartford. The Captain then took the Hartford right past the Brooklyn and into the mine field.
* General Pedro María Anaya to the general asking him where his ammo was after the Battle of Churubusco ended: "Si yo hubiera tenido parque, usted no estaría aquí (If I had any ammunition left, you would not be here)".
* The Brag was a tradition of the Scandinavian warriors. When going into battle, a warrior would "brag" about what feats he'd do in the upcoming battle, and his fellow warriors would hold him to this boast. If the warrior did not deliver in his brag, he'd be killed by his fellows, unless he died trying, in which case he'd be honored as one of the noble slain and burned in a funeral pyre so his spirit would go to Valhalla. Quite the motivator to either be a Badass or shut the hell up.
* Invoked and Subverted by a (supposed) [http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/doyouknow.asp RealLife Example]. A student is taking a test, but goes over the acceptable time. The professor refuses to accept it. Three times the student asks the professor if he knows who he is, in stronger language each time; each time the professor replies 'no'. Finally the student says "Good!" shoves the test into the middle of the stack, and walks away.
* Invoked and possibly parodied by the [http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/classic/classics/The-Brag.html Church of the Subgenius]. It's highly entertaining either way.
* "From youth my heart has been inclined toward the Way of strategy. My first duel was when I was thirteen, I struck down a strategist of the Shinto school, one Arima Kihei. When I was sixteen I struck down an able strategist, Tadashima Akiyama. When I was twenty-one I went up to the capital and met all manner of strategists, never once failing to win in many contests. After that I went from province to province dueling with strategists of various schools, and not once failed to win even though I had as many as sixty encounters. This was between the ages of thirteen and twenty-eight or twenty-nine." From ''The Book Of Five Rings'' by Miyamoto Musashi.
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''Sultan and Padishah.'' }}
* Speaking of Ottoman sultans, the letter of Sultan Mahmud IV to the Zaporogian Cossacks. And, topping that, the [http://www.thescreamonline.com/art/art7-1/repin/repin.html Cossacks' reply].
** That reply is probably a fake, though.
* Atahualpa, the final sovereign emperor of the Inca empire, had such a (possibly ahistorical) boast to the Spanish when they told him his land had been granted to them by the Pope:
{{quote|''"Your emperor may be a great prince; I do not doubt it, seeing that he has sent his subjects so far across the waters; and I am willing to treat him as a brother. As for your pope of whom you speak, he must be mad to speak of giving away countries that do not belong to him. As for my faith, I will not change it. Your own God, as you tell me, was put to death by the very men He created. But my God still looks down on His children."''}}
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* Muhammad Ali. That man only ''spoke'' in [[Badass Boast]].
** "He's a tramp, a bum and a cripple, not worth training for. I'll take him in five." Said before his fight with Henry Cooper. He did just that, although Cooper at one point laid Ali on the canvas with a punch.
** Most famously, before his first heavyweight title match against Sonny Liston, the relatively little-known Cassius Clay (as he still was) claimed he would "Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee." He won that one too.
** Ali actually lost against Joe Frazier in 1970, but nevertheless had a poetic [[Badass Boast]] beforehand: "Now this may shock and amaze ya/But I'm gonna retire Joe Frazier."
** Awesomely, when he was interviewed after he was fully afflicted with Parkinson's disease, unable to talk above a whisper and uncontrollably shaking, he ''continued'' to speak in [[Badass Boast]].
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* [[Lawrence of Arabia|General Allenby]] made a Badass ''Antiboast''. By tradition only a conqueror gets to ride into Jerusalem on a horse. Allenby of course ''was'' a conqueror . But what he did was dismount and ''Walk'' in saying, "I will not ride where Christ has walked."
** The next conqueror of course was [[Badass Israeli|Moshe]] [[Eyepatch of Power|Dayan]]. He didn't ride in, but he didn't stop to remind people that he was not riding in the way Allenby did, which is really too bad. Perhaps he hadn't heard of the custom or wished the credit to go to the IDF.
*** In the second case he should have had a man chosen by lottery as representative. It would have been too cool a [[Badass Boast]] not to remember.
* [[Indonesia|Gajah Mada]], before his campaign to unify the archipelago, made this oath to his queen: ''"If the external territorities of Majapahit are lost, I will not taste any spices. And until I have conquered Malaka, Seram, Tanjungpura, Haru, Pahang, Dompo, Bali, Sunda and Palembang... I will ''never'' taste any spices."'' And, he actually ''succeeded'' and even expands the territority of Majapahit into the whole archipelago that will be known as Indonesia.
* In 1990, 18-year-old Hugh Gallagher wrote [http://www.hughgallagher.net/neurofuzzy/essay.html his college application essay], which is one long, massive (and slightly surreal) [[Badass Boast]]. It reads in part:
{{quote|Occasionally I tread water for three days in a row. I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.}}
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* The USA, during the invasion of Afghanistan, flooded the airwaves with the following message to demoralize and intimidate the Taliban: "Attention. You are condemned. Did you know that? The instant the terrorists you support took over our planes, you sentenced yourselves to death. You will be attacked by land, sea and air. Resistance is futile."
* During a siege of Quebec in 1690, the English Admiral Phips sent an ambassador into the city to offer terms for its surrender. Governor Frontenac said to him "my only reply to your general will be from the mouth of my cannons!"
* The way Soviet soldiers spoke of one of their most formidable pieces of ordnance - [[Macross Missile Massacre|MLRS]] BM-13, aka [[I Call
* Allegedly when the U.S. military entered World War I a group of soldiers in France went to the tomb of Lafayette, the French noble who was responsible for much of the French assistance in the American Revolution and said "Lafayette, we have come" or "Lafayette, we are here."
* French general Henri Gouraud, after marching into Damascus in July 1920 to put down an anti-colonial rising, stood upon Saladin's grave, kicked it and said: "The Crusades have ended now! Awake Saladin, we have returned! My presence here consecrates the victory of the Cross over the Crescent."
* While [[Jesus]] (see also: [[The Bible]]) never personally gave a [[Badass Boast]], the late S.M. Lockridge gave [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upGCMl_b0n4 a pretty good one describing him], in accordance to the Christian doctrine of "boasting in Christ."
* The US Army has a Military Occupational Specialty known as "13F". Officially this is what is known as a Fire Support Specialist; colloquially as a [[wikipedia:Forward observer|Forward Observer]]. As do many specialties in the US Army, Forward Observers have an unofficial prayer: ''"Yea, tho I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death I will fear no evil; for I command the biggest damn guns in the valley."''
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** Or the motto of the Kadena [[Real Life/Cool Plane|SR-71]] base, ''"Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death I will fear no evil; for I am at 70,000 feet and climbing."''
* A boast about the US Navy, if not actually by them: Enemy targets continue to exist within the strike radius of an American carrier task force at the discretion of the task force commander.
* Despite being a top seed in the 2011 NBA Playoffs, the seven other teams in their conference openly expressed a preference on going up against the Dallas Mavericks (who would go on to win the title), believing they were an easy mark. Mavericks guard Jason Terry acknowledged the conceit and welcomed it:
{{quote|''"They are going to get their chance, one by one."''}}
** Keep in mind that Jason Terry [[Badass Boast|had the Larry O'Brien trophy tattooed on him before the 2010-11 season!]]
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* [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix' epitaph. The exact wording is lost, and it may have been either Greek or Latin, but one version reads: "No better friend...no ''worse enemy''."
* The American Civil War had a few:
** The Mayor of Atlanta sent a letter to General William T. Sherman, pleading for him to spare the city the fate of everything else Sherman's army had come across during their infamous March to the Sea. His response is in equal measures [[Badass]] for him and [[Nightmare Fuel]] for the people of Atlanta.
{{quote|'''Gen. William T. Sherman''': ''You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out...you might as well appeal against the thunder-storm...''}}
** In other words, Sherman was a force of nature a century and a half before [[Team Fortress 2|the Scout]] was.
** Another was from Captain Philip Sheridan, a Union officer whose entry took place at the Battle of Missionary Ridge. It would normally be enough that he stood in plain view of the Confederate position on the ridge, took out a flask, and raised it towards them and toasted, "Here's at you." But in anger at the mocking display, the Confederates fired a volley at Sheridan and his entrenched troops, missing him but disrupting his drink. [[Berserk Button|A mistake, as it turned out.]]
{{quote|'''Captain Philip Sheridan''': ''That was ungenerous. I'll take your guns for that!''}}
** Sheridan's men interpreted this ''as an order'', and charged the Confederate line along with their captain. The Confederates, despite their superior position, fled in panic, and the equally off-guard Union troops who weren't under Sheridan's immediate command (including Ulysses S. Grant) hastily mounted their own offensive and won the battle. Bear in mind that the Battle of Missionary Ridge was what led largely to the Cofederate defeat in the West, which in turn led to Grant being made overall general of the Union army.
* This [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhahiQJhfTo Royal Marines Commando advert]: "I am your worse nightmare. I have conquered fear. I have come to terms with terror, and pain is my best friend. I am a Royal Marines Commando. I will come from the sea. I will disappear without trace. My brothers will lay down their lives for me, as I will for them."
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTHyVWCoJdg This] video by [[YouTube]] user "TheThinkingAtheist" in response to Pastor Mike Stahl, who compared atheists to ex-convicts, sex offenders, and the KKK, and [[Idiot Plot|suggested they should be registered on a list]], [[Jerkass|so that they could be shunned and avoided]], [[What an Idiot!|and their businesses boycotted]]. Needless to say, TheThinkingAtheist was most displeased, leading to a [[Badass Boast]] demonstrating the sheer size of the atheist demographic today and yesterday.
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