best description of a badass

[caffeine_overdose]

In most action movies and adventure novels in which they have a hitman/ninja/cool killer they have a clever description of him to show what a badass he is. My favorite is “He left a trail of pregnant widows.” The other is from a mechwarrior book in which two men are watching a military procession.

Man 1:Who’s that.
Man 2: Hans Davion leader of the second largest military force in the universe.
Man 1: And that.
Man 2: Sao Tzu direct descendant of Sun Tzu.
Man 1: (pointing at Kai Allard) Let me guess that guy must be death himself.
Man 2:No that’s the guy death is afraid of.

[grendel72]

Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson has the best description by far of a badass.

Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Columbian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad…

[grendel72]

GAAK! I couldn’t find the complete quote, and I don’t have the book with me… The point of that passage is that Hiro gives up the idea of being the baddest motherfucker in the world after he meets another character and realises the position is taken.

[samarm]

For me its got to be Verbal in The Usual Suspects describing Keyser Soze.

I can’t find the complete quote but it had a bit that went like this:

“And then he showed these men of will what will really is.”

Can anyone find the full quote? It really is a good description of a badass.

[astro]

*Originally posted by samarm *
**For me its got to be Verbal in The Usual Suspects describing Keyser Soze.

I can’t find the complete quote but it had a bit that went like this:

“And then he showed these men of will what will really is.”

Can anyone find the full quote? It really is a good description of a badass. **

They tell Soze they want his territory - all his business. Soze looks over the faces of his family… THEN HE SHOWED THESE MEN OF WILL WHAT WILL REALLY WAS.

SUDDENLY, Soze pulls out a pistol and shoots the two men with guns. He turns and aims at the third man holding his child. The man threatens to cut the child’s throat, slicing just enough to draw blood.

SOZE FIRES.

The stunned Hungarian watches the child fall from his arms.

Soze turns the pistol on the next child, then the next and the next. He kills his children one by one in front of the Hungarian.

VERBAL (V.O.)

He tells him he would rather’ see his family dead than live another day after this.

SOZE walks over to his wife, crying and beaten on the floor and holds up her head. She gives him the strangest look. One of trust perhaps, saturated with fear and humiliation. He puts the gun between her eyes and fires.

He lets the last Hungarian go, and he goes running. He waits until his wife and kids are in the ground and he goes after the rest of the mob. He kills their kids, he kills their wives, he kills their parents and their parents’ friends.

He burns down the houses they live in and the stores they work in, he kills people that owe them money. And like that he was gone. Underground. No one has ever seen him again. He becomes a myth, a spook story that criminals tell their kids at night. If you rat on your pop, Keyser Soze will get you. And nobody really ever believes.

And you know why Keyser Soze could do all this and get away with it ? It was because of his God-given roots.

He was a Turk…

[samarm]

Now that’s what I call one badass mother!

Thanks astro, good work!

[caffeine_overdose]

grendel72 you embarrass me I forgot about that one and it is my second favorite book ever (I thought Cryptonomicon was better). The full quote is"
“Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest mother-fuck in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Columbian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.
Hiro used to fell that way, too, but then he ran into Raven. In a way, this is liberating. He no longer has to worry about trying to be the baddest motherfucker in the world. The position is taken. The crowning touch, the one thing that puts true world-class badmotherfuckerdom totally out of reach, of course, is the hydrogen bomb. If it wasn’t for the hydrogen bomb, a man could still aspire. Maybe find Raven’s Archilles’ heel. Sneak up, get a drop, slip a mickey, pull a fast one. But Raven’s nuclear umbrella kind of puts the world title out of reach.”

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

Whatever is Samuel L. Jackson-like is by definition badass.

[samarm]

Descriptive narrative? I suppose his wallet did say “BAD MOTHERF****R” in Pulp Fiction.

IIRC there’s a website you can actually buy a replica of that wallet from.