Warrior Poet/Playing With

Basic Trope: A warrior who applies poetry, philosophy, and/or art to combat.

• Straight: Bob is a war veteran who writes an epic poem based on his experiences in war.
• Exaggerated: Bob is a Dance Battler who, in the midst of battle, sings a beautiful and mournful elegy to each enemy he kills.
• Justified: Bob needs to cope with war somehow, so he uses expression to help himself along.
• Inverted: Bob is an artist by day and a brutal, psychopathic serial killer by night. The latter is inspiration for the former.
• Subverted: Bob writes an epic contemplative poem based on his experiences in war but it turns out he's a Miles Gloriosus.
• Double Subverted: But when the Miles Gloriosus is thrust into a combat situation, he ends up doing well and writing an even better poem.
• Parodied: Bob uses his experiences in war to write childish nursery rhymes.
• Deconstructed: War turns Bob into a savage or traumatizes him, which crushes any poetic tendencies he might have.
• Reconstructed: War turns Bob into a Shell-Shocked Veteran but this only fuels his desire to express his views on combat through art and poetry.
• Zig Zagged:
• Averted: A movie takes place in a time and place where warrior poets are a traditional trope (ancient China, ancient Japan, the Crusades, Sparta, etc.) but the main characters are unthinking soldiers who fight without wondering why they do.
• Enforced:
• Lampshaded:
• Invoked: Bob is a scholar of samurai literature, and when he's thrust into war he tries to apply this trope to his life to keep himself sane.
• Exploited: The military uses traditions, pageantry, and ceremony to keep its personnel from cracking.
• Defied: Bob is a Cultured Badass, but as far as he's concerned, once battle starts the artistic aesthete side of him stays in the tent. When he picks up his sword he turns into a brutal Combat Pragmatist and Screaming Warrior.
• Discussed:
• Conversed:

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