“Who do you rank as all-time bad-ass James?'

Viking Age Barbarian

Sir, this is a great question that reminds me that the names of the baddest men in history have been lost to us for the most part. It also reminded me that my memory is failing and ghosts of great men and paupers are slipping through the widening cracks in my mind. It is a humbling question, so I will answer it in the terms of what men from history would I be least eager to defy with a machete in my hand, which is the only weapon of war I am really competent with. So, if I were an old peltast with a blown throwing arm covering the wing of my unit, who would I cross blades with in possession of the surest knowledge that if Crom did not place a banana peel under his heel I would certainly be winging down to Death's grey door?

A general list would skew towards ancient Hellas, So I will do three:

-1. Mythic Bad-asses

-2. Hellenic Bad-asses

-3. Processional bad-asses

First, the best resources are by Paul Kirchner, a Paladin Press author, in his Deadliest Men and the sequel, More Deadliest men, as well as his book on the Duel. My metrics will be:

-1: the most men killed by his hand

-2: the most men killed at his command

-3. the most men who submitted rather than resist him

Each man will be rated 10 and down in each and get a score in each.

For the mythic heroes a monster or hero slain or a quest fulfilled will count as a battle.

For historical bad-asses:

To qualify for #2 he must rate as #1 and for #3 he must have rated at #2—the man must be a hand-to-hand killer. Scores for #1 will by multiplied X 5, for 2 x 3, and for 3 X 2.

In terms of bad-asses, there will be three breaks, the journeymen, the contenders and the champion—there can only be one deadliest man.

Mythic Bad-Asses

-Journeymen

#10: Horatio, for his stand at the bridge

#9: Theseus, for the bull-god and the stone-cold bitch with the viperous dreads

#8: Beniah, King David's chief hero, who killed an Egyptian in a duel and a lion in a pit on a snowy day

#7: Roland—took a train load of muzzies with him

#6: Odysseus, feats are second only to Herakles, but ranked behind Achilles and even Achilles victim Hector in man-killing prowess

#5: Gilgamesh, is second to Beowulf because he had Enkidu's help in his two greatest feats

-Contenders

#4: Beowulf, three monsters slain

#3: Achilles, submitted a river god and slaughtered many heroes

#2: Herakles, for his 12 labors and the slaughter of the Amazons

-Champion

#1: Samson, killed a lion bare-handed and defeated an army single-handed

The lists of the historical heroes will have much more detail. When you leave out Jason, Hector and Arthur you are leaving out a lot of worthy mention. But the lists will all be limited to ten and the Hellenic and processional bad-asses will have actual scores worked out instead of my ball-park mythic list above, which is meant to serve as a shadow upon the nature of the inquiry.

Additionally, my memory of names among the Latins, the Norse and my general lack of knowledge of Asian bad-asses should be taken into consideration. One should keep in mind that in WWII alone, their were dozens of extreme bad-asses and thousands who we never heard about. Therefore the processional hero list will end with the closing of the American frontier in 1891.

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Ragnaroking by Viking Age Barbarian