In LotR, when Sam battles the giant spider and then goes and attacks a tower full of Orcs, that’s pretty bad ass.
I think what FC means is that the episodes following the Ethan Rayne incident don’t count. Halloween established Giles’ credentials as a bad-ass.
For that matter, what about Joyce clocking Spike with a shovel and yelling “Don’t ever mess with my daughter!” in School Hard?
It’s not in combat, but there’s a scene from an episode of Monk, where Monk meets the guy who made the bomb that killed his wife, Trudy. The murderer is near death, suffering from the advanced stages of cancer, and is a hospital bed with a morphine drip. After Monk’s gotten the information out of him, he says something like, “This is what you did to me”, turns off the morphine drip, and says, “This is me.” He then watches the guy writhe in agony for about 6 or 7 seconds with a smirk on his face, then turns it on again and says “And this is Trudy”. Then he leaves.
If Droopy says “You know what? That makes me mad”, run.
More Whedon goodness, this time from Firefly:
In Trash, Jayne has been KO’d by an accident only to wake up in the infirmary paralyzed. Simon, the doctor, explains that he’s he’s given Jayne drugs to keep him from moving and agravating any possible spinal injuries. He also explains that he knows Jayne betrayed him and his sister previously, and points out that, as a criminal mercenary, Jayne will need Simon’s services as a doctor many times, and will therefore often be completely under his mercy.
Simon then claims that he would never abuse his position in such a manner, and expresses a desire for them to coexist without having to sleep with one eye open. But still, message recieved. Simon leaves Jayne paralyzed on the table until the drugs wear off.
At which point River adds, “Also, I could kill you with my brain.”
Xander rocks, period. That he, an otherwise completely normal human, is even with the Scoobies, a gang that has included three superhuman Vampire Slayers, two witches, two vampires, a werewolf, a vengeance demon, and a career military man amongst other things, is proof enough of his badassedness in and of itself.
Plus, he’s hot and hilarious and I love him only a little less than Willow.
No impugning The Xan Man.
Axe.
I sit corrected. 
He is the bravest among them, that’s for sure. But who is the career military man, he asked, being only 8 episodes into season four? Surely not Giles. Do you mean Riley, who seems to be just a college student, despite his involvement in Professor Bitch’s anti-vampire “initiative”?
Yep. Riley. While not strictly military in the sense that it’s not Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines, The Initiative is organized along those lines and is decidedly paramilitary.
Let’s not forget
two watchers, a bitchy cheerleader, a computer teacher, a supernatural key, super Johnathan, a highschool principal, a dozen slayers in waiting, her entire graduating class, and Andrew the “guest-age”. Have I missed anyone? I’ve never heard of any literary “chosen one” who needed so much help. Makes me think Buffy is kind of a candy ass. Every time Buffy goes on one of her “the slayer must go it alone” speils, I want to punch her in the face. Hell, I could probably take her. Unless the cheerleader was there to get her back. :rolleyes:
And I would never impugn the Xan man, even if he is a demon magnet. Willow should gay him up.
Given the amount of talk about the Whedon-verse, I’m surprised no one has nominated
Lorne, for his strategic murder of Linsey in “Not Fade Away”
from Angel yet.
See I would say that is not bad ass… And it certainly isn’t treated as bad ass. Lorne is so deeply affected by being asked to MURDER and so disgusted with himself that he actually WILL do it… He tells the fang gang that no matter what, he’s done with them.
And having reconsidered… I humbly remove Giles from the table… for the incidents I cited… but he stays because of the Ethan Rayne beat down.
Evil Dead, the first one - Ash. or ‘Ashley’ as he’s called. His badassery comes out of nowhere.
Buffy’s also survived seven years and two deaths whereas all the go-it-alone types seem to die off fast and stay that way. Kendra was an amazon and she lasted how long? One slayer vs millions of vampires and other assorted demons isn’t exactly a fair fight, even for a Chosen One.
As for the people you listed, most were either supernatural themselves, had some special calling or ability, weren’t Scoobies for very long, if at all, or, in the case of Calendar, dead within a year. Xander was there beside Buffy the entire time and survived everything despite not being a Chosen One or having any special skills except an uncanny comic timing and how to use a belt sander.
Not sure how much this counts, but I was reminded of it while watching “I Love the 80s Strikes Back” tonight. I’m not gonna spoiler box it. Weird Science: Anthony Michael Hall, in the final big showdown scene with the badass biker guy…if you’ve seen it, you know what happens.
George McFly: “Hey you… you get your damn hands off of her”
I came into this thread to mention him too. Ash is so well recognised as one of the ultimate badasses of all time that people tend to forget just how far he was from that character at the beginning of the first film.
…Arnold J Rimmer, BSC, SSC, Second Technician on the Red Dwarf, avid collector of photographs of Twentieth Century Telegath Poles, coward, gimboid and general smeghead. His captain once said " “There’s a saying amongst the officers: If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. If it’s not worth doing, give it to Rimmer.” Arnold managed to fail his astronavigation exam on no less than 13 occasions. Arnold Rimmer was a looser-and fate never dealt him a break.
But one day, Starbug did some time shifting thing, and the crew of the Red Dwarf met future versions of themselves: Cat is large and ugly, Rimmer is nasty, Krtyen has a horrible toupee, and Mr Lister… we don’t talk about what happened to him. The future Red Dwarf Crew declare their intentions to take over the Starbug, and Lister polls his crew about what action they should take. Rimmer steps up to the plate, declaring “We fight.” “Better dead than smeg!” A fierce battle erupts, and the Starbug crew is killed, all except for Rimmer. But Rimmer finds out just before Kryten dies how to save the ship, and hopefully save the crew… and Rimmer goes off to save them…
I present to the thread Arnold J Rimmer: official badass. 
The mention of Data reminded me of two examples.
“I assume your handprint will open this door whether you are conscious or not.”
“I cannot permit this to continue.”