Grumpy Warrior

[sasha_feather]

So a friend of mine (Things with Wings) said the other day that the grumpy warrior is my patron saint. This trope is resonating with me particularly lately. With chronic pain I'm frequently grumpy, but I still want to do the right thing. And I have to keep going, there's no choice.

Examples of this trope are:
MurderBot,
Eliot Spencer,
Bucky Barnes,
Wolverine.

Do you know of other examples?

eta: Sarah Connor

Comments

[satsuma]

Oh I def feel this!

Charlize Theron’s character in the Old Guard might lean a bit too cynical for you but is at least trope-adjacent

[ladyjax]

Grace Hanadarko, of the (late, lamented) show Saving Grace. Part of her grumpiness is that she literally has a last chance angel dogging her steps through the course of the show.

[naomikritzer]

The Mandalorian. (Am just now starting S2, so no spoilers if he turns less grumpy somehow.)

[boxofdelights]

Ursula Vernon's Digger. https://diggercomic.com/blog/2007/02/01/wombat1-gnorf/

I think this character shows up in a lot of Ursula Vernon stories, though they're not usually as grumpy as Murderbot.

[frayadjacent]

Xena!

[rydra_wong]

Zolf Smith of Rusty Quill Gaming, for whom "grumpy" is everyone's first go-to adjective?

Quick description because it's such a niche fandom:

Party healer but also melee combatant/tank. Canonically physically disabled and depressive (the player’s said that Zolf’s mental health stuff is based on stuff he’s struggled with, just amplified, and his playing of it is very, VERY good). Very, very, very stubborn. Former miner, former sailor, former pirate; formerly cleric of Poseidon, had a bad break-up with God (see: stubborn), and is now a cleric of something he has trouble putting a name on: "not hope exactly" ... "what comes next?".

(Also: socially awkward, prone to angry cooking, passionate fan of the trashy romance novels of Harrison Campbell.)

I adore him so much, especially in Present Times, because he is not an optimist and he struggles, he has intermittent mood crashes, he's worked so hard on sorting his shit out and sometimes he still ends up back in that awful place, and he -- keeps on going. Because it needs doing, because there's something in him that won't ever quite give up, because he chooses to. Because there's something that comes next.

Ahhhh

[jesse_the_k]

...it's so satisfying when you can match a cultural trope to your lived experience!

[starshipfox]

This is a great trope!