Badass Pacifist: Difference between revisions

** In this case, it's arguable whether that exactly constitutes pacifism, as while Excalibur was a very nice sword, the sheath made the bearer ''[[Immortality|invulnerable]].''

* In an absolutely perfect [[Wham! Line]] from "Cathy's Ring", [[The Lancer|Emma]] [[Deadpan Snarker|Cheung]] is revealed to be this

* [[Eccentric Mentor|Tom Bombadil]] from ''[[The Lord of the Rings]].''

* The major characters of the ''[[Foundation]]'' Series. All of whom used their [[Gambit Index|intellect]] [[The Empath|(some used mental powers in adittion)]] to overcome difficulties in their plans. Additional information would be spoiler.

* Valentine Michael Smith from ''[[Stranger in A Strange Land]]''. A [[Blithe Spirit]] [[Raised by Wolves|Raised by Martians]], he brings to Earth their [[Starfish Language]] and [[Blue and Orange Morality]] culture and teaches them to other human beings. Throughout the story, he never once raises a hand in violence. He does, however, use his Martian-inspired [[Psychic Powers]] to make overly aggressive people and objects [[Unusual Euphemism|"discorporate"]].

* Father James in ''[[Someone Else's War|Someone Elses War]]''.

 

 

* The leader of the telepath colony in ''[[Babylon 5]]''. The guy just stands there while a bigot punches his face in, and each time the bigot punches him in the face he stands up again. He manages to turn the act of standing up into a bassass act of defiance, all without any overt aggression.

** Not only that, he actually ''told'' the guy to hit him, repeatedly, just to make his point.

Byron: "And what would you expect to get out of four, five, and six that you did not get out of one, two, and three? Your anger has nothing to do with me. What will satisfy your anger will never come from me or anyone else here. I'm afraid you must look for it elsewhere." }}

* In the ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' episode "The Savage Curtain", powerful Excalibian aliens capture Kirk and Spock to pit them in the ultimate battle between "Good" and "Evil", recreating from their memories what they perceive as representatives of "Good" (Abraham Lincoln for Kirk, Surak of Vulcan for Spock) and "Evil" (a rogues gallery of the greatest tyrants in history, from Genghis Khan to World War III strongman Colonel Green). As they prepare to fight to the death, Surak insists to Kirk that they must attempt to make peace with the "Evil" representatives. Kirk is ready to give the same speech he's given in half a dozen other episodes to native aliens of several planets about the imperative to rise up and bravely fight off evil -- but for once, the "alien" points out to Kirk that just because they ''disagree'' about how to handle violence doesn't mean that Kirk's way is automatically morally superior. Surak (politely but firmly) informs Kirk that he is ''fully aware'' that if he heads to the "Evil" camp offering peace, they will almost certainly kill him. However, as a man of peace, Surak refuses to abandon his principles of non-violent pacifism, believing that this isn't a test of their ability to survive, but of their values and belief in peace. Surak leaves for the "Evil" camp, alone and unarmed. Even Kirk is moved to remark to Spock that "your Surak is a brave man", to which Spock replies "Men of peace usually are, Captain". {{spoiler|Surak is indeed later killed by the "Evil" characters after offering them peace: the audience is left to decide on their own if Surak's actions were better than Kirk's.}}

** It must be stressed that The Doctor is not a ''pure'' pacifist, a mistake some of his enemies have made on occasion: he dislikes resorting to violence, and is such a genius that he can usually think of some way to defeat the enemy non-violently. He also frequently sabotages the weapons of evil aliens so that they blow up in their face when fired, i.e. "reversing the polarity" on an alien mothership's doomsday weapon so it blows up the mothership itself. Even in these circumstances, The Doctor will try to urge the invading aliens not to attack, and if they do and get destroyed, it could be argued that it made karmic sense for them to be destroyed by their own doomsday weapon. Still, there have been even rarer occasions when The Doctor actually shoots and kills an enemy, plain and simple, when he felt he had no other choice.

* The titular [[MacGyver]], to at least some extent:

[[MacGyver]]: Exactly... }}

 

* Paul Rusesabagina, whose story was chronicled in ''[[Hotel Rwanda]]''. During the massacres in Rwanda in 1994, he managed to save nearly a thousand people who had been marked for death by sheltering them in his hotel and transporting them to safety, and standing up to corrupt military officials and screaming, machete-wielding mobs, all without raising a single firearm.

* One of the people involved in smuggling Jews out of Germany during the Holocast was Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat who served as a consul in Lithuania. He issued transit visas to thousands of Jews to assist them in reaching safety to Japan, risking his career, his life, and that of his family. It's disputed how many Jews he saved; the accepted range seems to be between 6,000 and 10,000 (regardless, all of these visas had to be written ''by hand''). When asked why he did it, he said the following:

* [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/world/asia/18japan.html?_r=2 The guy doing all this surely qualifies.]

* During [[WW 2]], many members of the Religious Society of Friends, more commonly known as the Quakers, attempted to reconcile their church's strict pacifism with their desire to see the fall of fascism. To this end, they often volunteered to serve as medics, going unarmed onto battlefields to save lives, rather than end them. Dangerous enough in a normal conflict, but in the Pacific Theatre and South-East Asian Theatres, where the Japanese had a habit of [[Kick the Dog|targeting non-combat personnel such as medics]], this was borderline suicidal. But they did it anyway. Because they were Badass.

* The citizens of the Baltic states during the [[wikipedia:Singing Revolution|Singing Revolution]], who, during the peak of their uprising against Communist rule, formed a huge human chain, 600 km (373 mi) long through the capital city of Estonia, to Latvia, to Lithuania. When the Soviet military cracked down on them, they linked arms and sang in the face of tanks and armour-piercing bullets that cut them down. Yes, they brought down their oppressive dictatorship ''through singing''.

* The [[wikipedia:Carnation Revolution|Carnation revolution]] that toppled the military dictatorship of Portugal. Okay, it was a Military coup, but it succeeded because it had massive public support, and because the military forces loyal to the government flat out refused not only to fire on civilians, but refused to fire on their former comrades in arms in the revolutionary faction (The [[State Sec|GNR Republican guard]] had no such qualms and killed 8 civilians). The revolution is so named because when troops marched into crowds with orders to disperse them, the crowed put carnations in the troop’s gun barrels, and the soldiers let them. The revolution is probably best summed up by these extract from the [[wikipedia:Timeline of the Carnation Revolution|timeline on Wikipedia]]

** Yeah, the officers loyal to the government has to resort to fisticuffs [[Crowning Moment of Funny|because no-one wanted to use guns.]]

* Numbers 8, 5, and 1 (at least; context is not known for many of the images) from [http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-8-most-ridiculously-badass-protesters-ever-photographed/ this] [[Cracked]] list.