History Main / TheSpartanWay

->''"The big difference between 'SEAL training' and 'Attempted Homicide' is that with an attempted homicide you don't expect the guy to survive and escape."''
-->-- '''Website/BadassOfTheWeek''' on [[https://www.badassoftheweek.com/sealteamsix the US Navy SEALs]]

The trope takes its name from Sparta, an ancient Greek city-state famous today for [[TropeCodifier uncomfortably similar training methods]].

** The Crimson Razors are an Imperial Fists Successor Chapter that recruits new members by taking young boys, placing them in squads, and then making those squads fight each other for months. Then, after the squads have been whittled down to the strongest (with the weaker squads being killed), each squad of ChildSoldiers is ordered to fight amongst themselves; those that refuse are killed. The last boy standing from each squad is then told to execute his former brothers in arms. If he does, he is taken to be implanted with gene-seed and begin the transformation into a Space Marine of the Crimson Razors. If he refuses, he and his comrades are all killed.

* ''ComicBook/ThreeHundred'', of course, being about Spartans and all.

An ultra-hardass military training regimen that produces disciplined, strong soldiers by brutal methods that would drive human rights activists into a rage if the soldiers weren't volunteers. May involve live-fire exercises with real bullets, survival training that consists of getting dumped naked into the wilderness a hundred miles away, then returning to base to be woken in the dark and screamed at during obstacle courses by DrillSergeantNasty, anything to keep the casualty percentage in the double digits. [[GenreBlindness One wonders how they've calculated the point where the gain in quality stops being worth the loss in numbers.]]

** [[Characters/SupermanDoomsdayCharacter Doomsday]] was raised by Kryptonian scientists by [[spoiler:sending an infant into the cruel wilderness of Krypton, getting it killed, harvesting its DNA, cloning it so that it [[GeneticMemory kept the memory of how it was killed]], then repeating the cycle over and over and over and et cetera until it became one of the ultimate killing machines in the universe, able to beat Characters/{{Superman|TheCharacter}} ''to death'']]. (This blurs the line between this trope and just TrainingFromHell, depending on your view of CloningBlues.)

An ultra-hardass military training regimen that produces disciplined, strong soldiers by brutal methods that would drive human rights activists into a rage if they soldiers weren't volunteers. May involve live-fire exercises with real bullets, survival training that consists of getting dumped naked into the wilderness a hundred miles away, then returning to base to be woken in the dark and screamed at during obstacle courses by DrillSergeantNasty, anything to keep the casualty percentage in the double digits. [[GenreBlindness One wonders how they've calculated the point where the gain in quality stops being worth the loss in numbers.]]

** The Crimson Razors are an Imperial Fists Successor Chapter that recruits new members by taking young boys, placing them in squads, and then making those squads fight each other for months. Then, after the squads have been whittled down to the strongest (with the weaker squads being killed), each squad of child soldiers is ordered to fight amongst themselves; those that refuse are killed. The last boy standing from each squad is then told to execute his former brothers in arms. If he does, he is taken to be implanted with gene-seed and begin the transformation into a Space Marine of the Crimson Razors. If he refuses, he and his comrades are all killed.

* Subverted in ''Fanfic/TiberiumWars''; the document at the end of Chapter Twenty-Three explains that the reason why the GDI commando program has a "22% fatality rate and 98% washout rate" is because people make the mistake of assuming that commandos are trained in the traditional manner. Commando "training" is simply the fact that you're even in the commando program to begin with. There's only two ways out of the commando program once you join: you leave and go back to the regular military ("washing out") or you die in combat. People criticizing or praising the "brutality" of the "training" are misrepresenting it for their own ends.
* From ''Fanfic/TheUniversiad'', Office of Special Resources training is among and some say the most brutal in the Forum. Though many details are highly classified, known aspects include being made to do mined running and obstacle courses for days without rest, live-fire exercises involving artillery and replacing targets while under fire, reliving past OSR operations and close-quarters combat courses that are rumoured to include a {{Room 101}}.

An ultra-hardass military training regimen that produces disciplined, strong soldiers by brutal methods that would drive l human rights activists into a rage if they weren't voluntary. May involve live-fire exercises with real bullets, survival training that consists of getting dumped naked into the wilderness a hundred miles away, then returning to base to be woken in the dark and screamed at during obstacle courses by DrillSergeantNasty, anything to keep the casualty percentage in the double digits. [[GenreBlindness One wonders how they've calculated the point where the gain in quality stops being worth the loss in numbers.]]

An ultra-hardass military training regimen that produces ultra-hardass soldiers by methods that would drive every human rights activist on the planet into a rage if they weren't voluntary. May involve live-fire exercises with real missiles, survival training that consists of getting dumped naked into the wilderness a hundred miles away, all the while being screamed at by DrillSergeantNasty, anything to keep the casualty percentage in the double digits. [[GenreBlindness One wonders how they've calculated the point where the gain in quality stops being worth the loss in numbers.]]

!!Examples:

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* The military from ''Manga/AttackOnTitan''. Their 3-year program is completely optional and people are allowed to drop out, or may be kicked out... but it is also noted that serious accidents or deaths are perfectly normal. The general attitude seems to be that anyone killed during training wouldn't have survived battling the [[HumanoidAbomination Titans]] anyway. The instructors are shown to force people to run until they collapse unconscious and during the induction ceremony, several recruits are struck for giving a wrong answer or not saluting properly. One trick used by instructors during 3-dimensional Maneuver Gear training is to [[SinkOrSwimMentor randomly cut]] safety lines, killing anyone unable to [[NervesOfSteel remain calm]] and react quickly enough. The minimum age for enlistment is [[ChildSoldiers twelve]], with society labeling anyone that doesn't enlist a coward. For many children, the military is their only option due to widespread poverty and food shortages.
** Taken to a greater extreme by [[spoiler: the Marleyan Warrior Program]]. Children between the ages of '''5 and 7''' are recruited from the ghettos and promised a better life for their families if they make the cut. Desperate families volunteer their children for military service, slowly whittling the candidates down to a handful of promising recruits. Children barely old enough to be attending school are forced to run marathons in the rain, carrying heavy military equipment while their instructors scream insults and threats at them. Besides the harsh physical training, their instructors also subject them to extensive indoctrination to mold them into fanatically-loyal soldiers. Should they step out of line or cause their superiors to doubt their loyalty, their entire family could be executed for treason. Those few that make it through the harsh selection process are expected to serve until their death, with the threat of being [[EatenAlive replaced]] always present. At one point, the audience is introduced to a batch of Candidates that are being tested....by being taken to the front lines and expected to serve as the vanguard of a major combat operation. The survivors get to return home with the dubious honor of being veterans at the tender age of 12.
* ''Anime/BurstAngel'' runs with this and then [[ExaggeratedTrope goes above and beyond]] by having only 3 surviving candidates of the supersoldier training program...and one would later go crazy and the other would betray the organization. Yeah, uh, not the most successful final training exercise... (and the one who remained loyal was the first of the final 3 to get beaten in the flashback by the other two, also the first major enemy encountered and defeated by the traitor early on, and the one who went crazy [[Anime/{{Witchblade}} shares her name]] with another anime supersoldier who went crazy.) The fact 3 survive may be a subtle reference to Naked Weapon mentioned below, considering their final exam is similar and also they are wearing [[SensualSpandex skintight]] "battlesuits".
* The Saiyans in ''Franchise/DragonBall'' pretty much exemplify the Spartans to a T, as a warrior race that believed in constant training and one's strength as the ultimate virtue. They even sent their infants to conquer planets whose inhabitants are weak enough for a baby Saiyan to slaughter.
* In ''Anime/FullMetalPanicFumoffu'', Sousuke subjects his high school rugby team to this, in a not-so-subtle ShoutOut to ''Film/FullMetalJacket''.
* ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'': It's become a joke among fans that Nanoha Takamachi's method of parenting is all about the Spartan Way. And don't forget the actual training. Considering the fact that [[spoiler:Subaru is a HollywoodCyborg]] and Teana is a BadassNormal whose magic levels exceed that of the standard TSAB mooks, and they look like they can barely stand after training, fear for the lives of Nanoha's new pupils is understandable.
* ''Manga/MakenKi'': At Tenbi Academy, everything is settled in battle and we mean ''every''-thing.
** Any guy that wants to date any of the female students better be prepared to fight for it, because they'll have to [[BestHerToBedHer prove their worth]] first.
** Lampshaded by Demitra in chapter 10, when Usui drafted a petition for co-ed swim classes and proposed they settle it with a water polo match.
--->'''Demitra:''' ''[{{glasses pull}}]'' ...looks like everything has to be settled through competition]] in this school.
* Inverted in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam00'' in that Setsuna and the other Krugis holy warriors were trained to go beyond Janissary levels of fanaticism (to the point they killed their own parents) and to fight to their own destruction by Ali al Saachez, a cynical rat bastard who had no faith in or love for anything or anyone except war for its own sake. When the trainer is that much of a hypocrite, the entire endeavor is a mockery. Setsuna himself goes from fanatic Muslim to frequently insisting there is no God in any of the situations he finds himself in.
* ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'': The hero license exam uses the "selection" variant. Every year, only fifty percent of applicants are expected to pass. They want only the best to become professional heroes. When the main characters take the test, due to [[spoiler:All Might's recent retirement]], requirements have been made even more strict--out of over a thousand applicants, only ''one hundred'' will be allowed to pass. Yes, less than ten percent. The first part of the test is a massive battle royale that pits all the applicants against each other, and the second part a simulated rescue test. The first is testing skill and speed, while the second is testing adaptability and teamwork. Out of the hundred who pass the first part, a number fail the second, though those people just have to take a remedial course.
* Ninja in ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' begin their training at their village's ninja academy at a very young age; even during peacetime, ninja generally graduate and become active duty genin by age ''twelve''. Not every genin survives the yearly examination/[[TournamentArc martial arts tournament]] needed to become a chunin, and only a small percentage actually passes the test each year.
** At least in the Hidden Leaf Village, the academy is shown to be more of a basic skills course that focuses at least as much on academia as it does on combat skills. Though the main cast all decide to take the chunin exams early in their careers, the average genin will usually first spend at least a few more ''years'' building up his/her skills by performing low-risk missions and receiving personal instruction from an elite ninja assigned as his/her team's mentor. It's still worth noting, if Sakura is any indication, that even a newly-minted genin with comparatively poor combat ability is still capable of throwing kunai accurately enough to pin a falling person to a tree without drawing blood.
** The Hidden Mist plays this straight; you graduate the academy by killing your classmates. It seems to be somewhat counterproductive; Mist's population is fairly small compared with the other great villages, and its ninja seem to have a tendency to be disloyal. The Leaf may be (relatively) soft, but it has the largest population, a highly-regarded shinobi corps, and its washouts survive to diversify the city's economic base....
*** In fact, it's implied that the Mist's training practices were deliberately meant to harm the village; the former Mizukage largely responsible for them (who is not remembered fondly) was [[spoiler:actually under the control of the BigBad]]. The current Mizukage, who wishes to distance the village from its reputation as "The Bloody Mist", has likely abolished such practices.
* This is the preferred training method of every single one of Tsuna's tutors in ''Manga/Reborn2004'', most of whom are more rough than the person before them. Colonello is actually outright called "more Spartan than Reborn" in his training methods, and he's nothing compared to Lal Mirch (who trained Colonello) and Future Hibari, the latter of whom outright gambles Tsuna's life with no intention to save him if Tsuna can't get out of one of Hibari's tricks before the training even officially started. ItMakesSenseInContext that they'd all be that way, since they're Mafiosi.
* ''LightNovel/SagaOfTanyaTheEvil'': This is how Tanya "trains" her personal battalion of elite mages. First day? She wakes them up in the early morning and subjects them to a 36 hour artillery bombardment with no time for preparation (with a few live rounds mixed in with the dummy shells to keep them on their toes), and immediately after orders them to hike several dozen kilometers within 48 hours while being hunted by military forces with air support and tracking dogs. Through the snowy mountains. With nothing but the clothes on their backs (and one shovel). What is waiting for them at the end of the hike? Counter-interrogation training, ie outright torture. Within a couple of months, her mages are among the most elite soldiers in the whole Empire. Of course, her real intent was not to produce super soldiers, but to scare the recruits into giving up... which failed utterly.
* Harsh training methods are common for all trying to become a warrior of Athena in ''Manga/SaintSeiya''. Some aspiring Saints get off lucky, and get to train one-on-one with a benevolent (or, at worst, indifferent) master such as [[OldMaster Libra Dohko]], Eagle Marin, or the [[AnIcePerson Crystal Saint]]. But the vast, ''vast'' majority are sent to training camps where they must compete for the right to don the sacred Cloth... if not for their very ''lives''. Andromeda Island and especially Athena's Sanctuary have {{Death Course}}s where battalions of trainees must survive both daily combat as well as environmental hazards (and the occasional murderous master.) And even they are easily overshadowed by Death Queen Island training methods.
* Tiger's Cave pupils in ''Manga/TigerMask'' are trained to become highly capable and merciless wrestlers with such exercises as fighting lions, panthers (with only their legs, to learn how to fight with them) and ''gorillas'', jumping from a rotating platform where a single error would mean landing on very deadly hazards including ''molten lead'' (the exercise is supposed to ensure the pupil learns how to decide fast), doing push-ups on the legs with weights attached to the head and a mat with poles under the butt (to strengthen the legs. There's a RealLife exercise that is exactly the same, only without the poles), being attached to a bridge ''head down'' (the series didn't specify the purpose), and being ''set on fire'' (more specifically, they are made wear sweaters drenched in fuel that are set on fire, and then they have to put the fire out by rolling on the ground. The exercise is to develop speed when forced to the ground), with the trainers ready to hit them with bullwhips if they slacked off. Many pupils die in the process, but the survivors can easily kill tigers and put in hospital the average wrestler, and out-foul heel wrestlers: Wrestling/DickTheBruiser, an infamous RealLife wrestler, faced the protagonist twice, and the first time was downed by a single foul that the referee failed to notice before he could even think a decent foul, while the second time his fouls were neutralized and used on him ''improved'' (he started by throwing fuel and a lit cigar at Tiger Mask. Tiger Mask took the fuel and the cigar on his cloak, applied his training to put the fire down enough to take the cloak off, and [[InfernalRetaliation hit Dick with the burning cloak while fanning the flames at the same time]]. At the end of the match, Dick was half-dead, strangled with the ring's rope).
* In ''Manga/Touch1981'', Coach Kashiwaba's training methods are cruel and even outright criminal. But they work, whether he likes it or not.
* The Karlstein Institute in ''Anime/ValvraveTheLiberator'' trains agents this way from the time they're children. Their names are taken from them, and they are given letter-number code names (with German numbers) -- L-elf, A-drei, X-eins, etc. In the second season, when the action is moved to the base of this institute, young trainees are shown to be willing and able to kill without hesitation, and flashbacks show that the main AntiVillain team of graduates had to kill one of their friends when they were in training there, because he was loyal to the overthrown regime.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* The war camp run by the Bloodletter in ''Literature/BlackDaggerBrotherhood'' qualifies for this trope. And unlike the real Spartans, who started training at age seven, his trainees started at age three. Made worse by the fact that winners of sparring bouts were encouraged to rape the losers. Alumni of this camp include Darius and Vishous.
* In ''Brotherhood of the Rose'' the CIA assassin protagonists are recruited as boys from a government orphanage (whose boys were already being groomed as patriotic cannon fodder for the US military) and then raised to be killing machines, to the point where disguised CIA agents were sent to mug the boys and beat them humiliatingly so as to make them ''really want'' to learn martial arts. As one of them puts it: "The way we were raised, I don't think we were ever kids."
* Creator/TomKratman's ''Literature/CarrerasLegions'' features the titular mercenary outfit, which makes the training for its infantry super-harsh (as in, ''training'' casualties amounting to about one per cent of full strength). It's even worse for officers: they have to go through infantry training, and ''then'' their equivalent of Ranger School.
* In Jeramey Kraatz's ''Literature/TheCloakSociety'', the Betas' training. They start off with a run and if they don't run fast enough to please him, Barrage sends explosions to their feet; he had, in the past, sent all but one of them to the infirmary with injuries. In ''Villains Rising'', the milder methods that Gage devises for training surprise the Junior Rangers; the Rangers had used much less serious, and then the Betas tell them how their training was conducted.
* The Blood Lords, from Creator/JohnRingo's ''Literature/CouncilWars'' series. Somewhat of a necessity given that, just a few months prior to the titular conflict kicking off, the people in it had been members of a post-scarcity survivor. They wouldn't have stood a chance against the numerically superior opposition otherwise.
* The Pyrrans in Creator/HarryHarrison's ''Literature/{{Deathworld}}'' have to do this just to survive their planet, where EverythingTryingToKillYou is the only constant. The weather, tides, and tectonic activity are unpredictable, radiation is high, and the native lifeforms are even worse. The only thing on their minds (literally) is to kill all humans. The plants and animals are constantly mutating thanks to the radiation and the brutal fight for survival. The human settlers have to constantly look for new ways to protect themselves. Children are taught to fight and survive as soon as they can speak, and are expected to be fully independent by the time they are 6. Thanks to [[HeavyWorlder double gravity]], even a Pyrran child can defeat a non-Pyrran in unarmed combat. All Pyrrans train from childhood to be crack shots. Unlike a typical example of this trope, the Pyrrans themselves don't subject their children to extremely-harsh training. The training is fair for the situation. It's the environment that weeds out those who are unfit. Even adults have to undergo re-training after going off-world for a few days.
* In ''The Defense of Hill 781'' soldiers who get sent to Purgatory find it just like the [[HellIsWar US Army National Training Center]]. In other words either the army needed something really nasty and modeled the NTC on Purgatory. Or the afterlife needed something really purgatorial and used the NTC as the closest example on Earth.
* The Greek text ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deipnosophistae Deipnosophistae]]'' ("the dinner philosophers") features an example of The Spartan Way as applied to table manners: A Spartan was invited to a seafood banquet featuring urchins. Not being familiar with how they're eaten (and not about to ask one of those pansy-ass Athenians), he ''puts one in his mouth and starts chewing''.
--> "What detestable food! [[MasochistsMeal I will not now be so effeminate as to eject it]], but I will never take it again."
* Literature/TheDraka self-consciously mirror the training regimen of ancient Sparta, even calling their militaristic boarding school program the ''Agoge''. Unlike in Sparta, both boys and girls are trained this way. While the Spartans had the [[SlaveRace Helots]] to keep in line, the Draka have ''[[TakeOverTheWorld everyone on Earth who is not them]]''.
* In ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'', the incredibly harsh prison planet Salusa Secundus serves as the secret training grounds for the Emperor's elite [[SuperSoldier Sardukar]] shock troops. And the incredibly lethal deserts of the titular planet Dune serve to make its indigenous people, The Fremen, hardy enough to overcome even the Sardukar.
-->"The Sardukar was forced to use the jet engines of their troop transporters as flamethrowers. That, my dear Baron, is an act of desperation!"
** The Ginaz Academy, which trains the best warriors in the Empire. It's a grueling eight-year program, and roughly one-third of all students do not survive training. Another third simply wash out, and the final third join the ranks of the Ginaz Swordmasters.
* ''Literature/TheForeverWar''. While the initial training is brutal enough, it is later mentioned to the lead that [[DesignerBabies growing]] and [[{{Tykebomb}} programming ideal soldiers from birth]] was tried and didn't work (the aliens do suicidal valor better). The training was [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by the fact that the environments they were fighting in were [[DeathWorld just as lethal]], and that they had to be trained to fight in them. Considering that they were training on an airless rock where one wrong step could kill them, the casualties taken were probably low. The impracticality of this is lampshaded many times by the main characters, and given how the military is drafting geniuses and using them as CannonFodder, on airless rocks that could be bombarded from orbit and retain the same value, and how it turns out that [[spoiler: the aliens had nothing to do with the destroyed ship that started the war]], it seems to suggest that the government is just trying to kill off all the smart people.
* The Wilds in ''Literature/AHarvestOfWar'' are literate and have access to some of the best technology available (things like crucible steel) yet still choose to live as hunter-gatherers in the wilderness, particularly forests, while maintaining combat readiness on par with knights (who have a lot more free time to practice).
* In the Creator/SvenHassel [=WW2=] novel ''Monte Cassino'' the 27th Penal Panzer Regiment is commanded by Major Mike Braun, a German-American and former US Marine.
-->He turned to Hauptfeldwebel Hoffman. "Two hours special drill in the river. Anyone who kills a comrade gets three weeks leave. Every tenth cartridge and every twentieth grenade will be live. I want to see at least one broken arm. Otherwise, four hours extra drill."
-->Then began one of Mike's usual exercises. We hated him because of them, but they made us hard and inhuman. If you are to be a good soldier, you have to be able to hate. You have to kill a man as if he were a louse.
* In ''Raven's Shadow'', this is how the Sixth Order operates. Ten year old boys come in, seventeen year old {{Badass}} WarriorMonk commandos come out. To graduate you have to fight three men to the death at the same time. The attrition rate is about 50%, but those aren't all fatalities, some just wash out. They do differ from the standard in one respect: instead of starving the kids they feed them the equivalent of three banquets a day to ensue they grow up strong and healthy. Although even that has an ulterior motive, once you're used to the massive regular calorie intake they dump you alone in the woods and leave you to fend for yourself over the winter.
* In ''Literature/RedRising'', society is rigidly stratified into various genetically engineered castes, and the ruling Gold caste maintains its power by training future leaders according to this method. Youths are sent to the Institute and the first night in are snatched out of bed and beaten up and then placed in a room with another student, only one of which can leave alive. After that, the students participate in a [[DeadlyGame deadly]] version of CaptureTheFlag in which capturing other players and enslaving them is par for the course and there's no rule against maiming, raping, and/or killing opponents. One Gold authority actually makes specific reference to the Spartans as a model, commenting to the effect that both Ancient Athens (a democracy) and Ancient Rome (an aristocratic empire) fell to decadence, and that the Spartan system provides a positive counterexample in combining aristocracy with training that prevented the society from becoming "weak".[[note]]Which is completely ahistorical, but whatever[[/note]]
* The ''Literature/RepublicCommandoSeries'' books of the ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' describe the training of the original Clone trooper army as including live fire exercises at around age 4-5 and a course called the sickener designed to make the troops wash out. There's also the matter of groups of soldiers going missing if their accuracy is as low as 95%. While there was also the whole cloned issue that led to them being effective, there was definitely more than a little of The Spartan Way involved.
* TIE fighter pilot training in the ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends Literature/XWingSeries'' was noted to be particularly brutal, producing fanatical {{Blood Knight}}s to a man. Deconstructed in that they're compared negatively against the New Republic pilots, who received tough but fair training, and as a result are a much more well-adjusted BandOfBrothers who can still outfly their Imperial counterparts with ease.
* ''Literature/TheReynardCycle'': The blood-guard, the StateSec of Calvaria, are trained in this fashion. Only ten percent of the children selected to serve in the order survive the process.
* Deconstructed in ''Literature/SeptimusHeap''. The [[ChildSoldiers Young Army]] is trained this way, with little food, a highly militaristic and uncomfortable lifestyle, and periodic 'night exercises', where a troop of boys is left in the dangerous Forest at night and has to find their way back. Boy 412, a ten-year-old who was in the Young Army since he was born, nearly freezes to death (he's saved by magic) because his uniform is too thin for the midwinter cold he's standing guard in, and later loses a fight to Jenna, who is his age and has had an ordinary life, albeit one with six older brothers, because his harsh lifestyle has made him ''very unhealthy''. A later book also flat out states that while the Night Exercises were meant to weed out "the weak, the scared, and the stupid", they mostly just weeded out the unlucky. Not that the Custodian Guard cares; after all, the Young Army is [[RedShirtArmy Expendable.]]
* The Unsullied in Creator/GeorgeRRMartin's ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' are trained from birth, not only to be superior warriors, but also to be unswervingly loyal. This training involves raising a puppy from birth as their only friend, and then ''personally strangling it'' to prove they can follow orders. They're also said to be able to stand until they collapse of starvation and are fed a mixture that dulls and eventually eliminates their sense of pain. To demonstrate this, a slaver ''hacks the nipple'' off one of the Unsullied, who doesn't even flinch.
** That first one is drawn from propaganda about SS officer candidate school in Nazi Germany requiring cadets to do the same thing. ''Probably'' propaganda.
** Unsullied training actually has worse aspects, including having no permanent name and having to kill an infant.
** [[spoiler: Notably, they don't appear to appreciate the training, with orders for the more inhumane methods to cease quickly earning their loyalty.]]
* ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'': In boot camp, less than ''10%'' of Rico's class graduate, and the Mobile Infantry's officers are always soldiers with previous combat experience (you go through boot camp, serve in combat, and if you excel you may apply for Officer Candidate School). Somewhat a deconstruction because of the 90% that didn't pass boot, less than 1% actually died, the training in the first weeks is designed mostly to weed out those who lack the physical or mental capability to serve in the Mobile Infantry, and unless they've been kicked out for bad conduct disqualified trainees are allowed to transfer to a less demanding service branch and complete their Federal Service there.
* The ''Franchise/StarTrek'' book series ''Literature/StarTrekKlingonEmpire'' establishes this as the way the Klingon Empire trains their soldiers. One task has the soldier dropped off on an ice sheet on [[Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry Rura Penthe]] with no supplies or weapons and told to walk to the base at the north pole. [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption One that doesn't actually exist.]] This is in addition to any training Klingons receive from the own families, which likely include some very harsh parenting techniques.
* In ''Literature/TheTamuli'', the Cyrgai are a ''slightly'' exaggerated version of the Spartans. Convinced they were the world's greatest warriors, their reliance on massive slave labor kept them from expanding very effectively, and elevation of training exercises to more of a performance art than a martial art landed them in trouble when their enemies started to develop new tactics. Having inferior magic was the nail in their society's coffin. Only the fact that their mindless devotion to their god made him stupendously powerful saved them, but they stagnated and remained in the bronze age indefinitely until they were useful only as tools in a more cunning villain's plans.
* ''Literature/TrappedOnDraconica'': The lifestyle of all Leonidans is intense physical training from the age of five. There is enough evidence to call it ''[[TropeMakers the original]]'' spartan way.
* In ''Literature/{{Victoria}}'', the Confederation's military ethos has strong elements of this. Their doctrine emphasizes individual bravery, physical fitness and personal tactical leadership, and in training much weight is put on demanding field and live-fire exercises. Additionally, their society is quite militarized overall, with the General Staff holding a major influence in politics. Given all this, it is little surprise that they [[PuttingOnTheReich quite consciously and deliberately]] derive a lot of inspiration from historical UsefulNotes/{{Prussia}}.
* Kiril Island in ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'' efficiently serves the purpose of being a place to train infantry and a place to dump people TheEmperor is [[ReassignedToAntarctica unhappy with.]] In other words Barrayaran infantry get sent to their counterpart of Siberia just to get trained.
* [[BigBad Falcone's]] method of raising his TykeBomb soldiers in the ''Literature/WarchildSeries''. Any child unlucky enough to be designated one of his protégés faced tough physical exercises and early instruction in gambling, sex, and weaponry. It's also implied at least a few of those children are [[{{Squick}} raped]] as preparation for using sex as a weapon against people (the goal here to produce Super Assassin/Pirates rather than Super Soldiers).
* In the ''Literature/WarriorCats'' series, [=ShadowClan=]'s training while Brokenstar is the leader -- even [[ChildSoldiers kits]] are forced to train in the brutal battle training, and many end up dying. Dark Forest training also counts.
* Micheal Z. Williamson's "The Weapon" has the Freehold's special forces Operatives undergo similar training, to the point that [[spoiler: one hundred or so of them with minimal support pretty much destroy the UN ruled Earth, killing billions in the process]]. Before anyone's suspension of disbelief entirely implodes, some points: [[spoiler:the Operatives required years of preparation, their acts of sabotage included the use of tacnukes, bioweapons, thermobaric attack on city infrastructure, sabotaging arcologies, and nerve gas, and there were very few Operatives who survived the massive Earth-wide manhunt for them after their attack and that being aided by good fortune bordering on divine providence. It also helps the commando tactics were backed up by a conventional attack afterwards]].
* ''Franchise/TheWitcher'': Aspiring witchers were put through a series of trials that only one in ten, sometimes one in twenty, survived. The Trial of the Grasses alone, where they are injected with the herbs and mutagens that grant them their superhuman abilities, had a 60-70% mortality rate.
* In the ''Literature/{{Wolfbreed}}'' series, which is an ''Manga/ElfenLied'' homage, UsefulNotes/TheTeutonicKnights do this to a bunch of werewolf children in an attempt to create [[SuperSoldier Super Soldiers.]] Results were... mixed.
* ''{{Literature/Wulfrik}}'': Joining Wulfrik's crew involves fighting a fellow candidate to the death on the Wolf Forest, a series of poles of different heights several dozen feet off the ground. The ground is lined with spikes for good measure. The event itself has a festival atmosphere, with members of many different Chaos-worshipping tribes coming to watch or join.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* Inquisitors, especially the High ones (those that have supernatural powers) in ''TabletopGame/AnimaBeyondFantasy'', are said to suffer since childhood a training so hard, including of course religious indoctrination, that few survive the ordeal -- those less worthy end up as guards of the place.
* Clan Trueborn in ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' are DesignerBabies grown in batches of a hundred using {{Uterine Replicator}}s. They are grown to a specific branch of the Clans' military (infantry, mecha, aerospace) and then repeatedly pitted against each other in live-fire training to determine their fitness. Finally, they are tested against full-blown warriors in a live-fire [[DuelsDecideEverything Trial of Position]] in order to graduate. On average, twenty Trueborn every batch graduate and become members of the [[FantasticCasteSystem Warrior Caste]]. Around fifty wash out and are reassigned to another caste for life. The remaining thirty wash out feet-first. Given that Clan society is built on AsskickingEqualsAuthority where a Warrior's shelf life is twenty years at best before they either enter Clan politics or get assigned to a ''[[DeathSeeker solahma]]'' [[DeathSeeker unit]], it is seen as entirely natural for Trueborn to learn how this works from early childhood. 'Nicer' Clans like the Ghost Bears and Hell's Horses are known for offering someone who failed to graduate a chance to transfer to a different branch of Warrior training and try again. For example, someone who fails to meet the requirements to be a mechwarrior could go into tank or aerospace fighter training and try again. Failing the second time still sees them reassigned, though.
** Clan Freeborn (i.e. natural births) from any Caste are also technically allowed to test in as Warriors... Technically. While having to go through the same training they suffer FantasticRacism (though how much depends on the Clan), tend to get stuck with the worst instructors and the oldest equipment, have to play catch up to their Trueborn peers since they haven't been trained from birth (and the Trueborn never go easy on them; rather the opposite), and even if they successfully graduate they can never be Bloodnamed and as such never obtain officer rank.
* ''TabletopGame/DarkSun'', a setting for ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', is so ridiculously harsh that simply living there has effectively indoctrinated every living creature on the planet, sentient and otherwise, in The Spartan Way. Drained of life by the native version of magic, something like 90% of the planet is desert -- even the seas have been boiled dry and their beds filled with silt, and a given locale is lucky to see a meager shower of rain once a year. Metal is so rare that bone, rock and chitin are the accepted standard for weapons and armor (not that anyone wears armor, it's just too hot). Temperatures range from 110 degrees in the morning to 150 degrees by late afternoon. Just about everything smarter than a rock has some degree of psychic power, and every plant and animal, even the ones that don't eat flesh, is capable of killing you. The Githyanki, a xenophobic, egotistical, psychic ProudWarriorRace that happily crosses blades with every nasty the multiverse has to offer, invaded Athas '''once'''. And promptly ran away with their tails tucked between their legs, then sealed up the portal and told everybody else to stay the ''hell'' away from this crazy place. "[[Franchise/{{Dune}} God made Athas to test the faithful]]" would be a good analogy if Athas ''had'' any deities (in ''AD&D'' it was unknown whether it'd ever had any, while in 4th edition they'd been killed or driven away by elemental spirits known as primordials), with the closest thing its priests serve being elemental powers. Or to put it succinctly, during the ''AD&D'' era, ''Dark Sun'' was the only published setting to start characters at 3rd level, while "encouraging" players to have back-up characters ready.
* The ''[[TabletopGame/{{GURPS}} GURPS: Black Ops]]'' sourcebook has the Academy, the hidden training center where the Company sends it's recruits to make Black Ops out of them. The training program is ridiculously intensive, requires the equivalent of ''at least'' two doctorate degrees in book learning, learning ''at least'' two additional languages, mastery of martial arts, qualification with virtually every known weapon (the combat specialists are required to learn everything up to and including nuclear weapons engineering) as well as expert social and infiltration skills. The physical drills include the standard "dropped naked in the wilderness" test (nicknamed "Summer Camp"), exercises (simulated torture, and occasionally not-so-simulated torture) to test a cadet's resistance to mental stress, and a team-building exercise in which a squad of cadets are attached to a six-foot log via a steel chain, which they must learn to maneuver around hallway corners, through doorways, and up and down stairwells ''while being fired at with live ammo''. There's also things like spending six days escorting around a poorly-sealed box full of poisonous spiders while dodging robot snipers, or being forced to stage a firefight with live ammo in a warehouse, without being told that all the crates are full of glass bottles full of benzene and rolled-up newspapers. (And you're ''not allowed to leave the warehouse until you've finished the exercise''... even if it ''is'' on fire.) Usually, only about half of the recruits make it through all five years of training with their lives and sanity intact. The general effect of this is that most Black Ops can face impossible challenges and unspeakable horrors, and go "I've been through worse."
* One of the (many) reasons the 3E ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' supplement ''Champions of Darkness'' is the object of massive fan derision is that it claimed Strahd von Zarovich trains his spellcasting minions this way, by trapping them in a hellish prison surrounded by toxic vapors, and leaving them there until they either die or gain enough levels to teleport out.
* The Maduri caste of ''TabletopGame/RocketAge'''s Mars traditionally form its entire military force. They live incredibly hard lives from a very young age and continue to do so, despite being one of the higher castes in traditional society.
* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'':
** The training of [[SuperSoldier Space Marines]] would almost take this to the point of parody, if it did not portray it so chillingly. Aspirants, pre- or barely post-pubescent children, must run a gauntlet of lethal physical and mental challenges, then survive a series of brutal physical, mental and spiritual tests before they're even considered. While they're still undergoing physical augmentation, neophytes take to the field as part of the chapter's Scout Company, infiltrating behind enemy lines or supporting their brothers in battle as light infantry. If they survive their first couple decades of war, maybe one in a hundred of the original aspirants will don the PoweredArmor of a full-fledged Space Marine. The training never stops, either; Marines not on campaign spend their days in live-fire exercises, tactical indoctrination and prayer, with a whopping four hours of sleep (and fifteen minutes of free time, if the Chapter Master is feeling generous). The only reason they can actually keep their numbers up is the sheer ''scale'' of the Imperium- [[ComicBook/DamnationCrusade four potential recruits from a single planet is an exceptionally good haul]], but multiply that by ''billions'' of planets housing ''trillions'' of angry, sociopathic fighters and you can see how some Chapters have problems keeping themselves under the prescribed 1000-man limit (and some don't even use it).
** The Literature/BloodAngels initiation involves the stunted inhabitants of Baal trekking across a radioactive desert and climbing a mountain in a bulky rad-suit, surviving a [[GladiatorGames gladiatorial tournament]], and immediately meditating for three days without food or water, with any who fall sleep being executed. Then they're put in a coma and spend a year in a blood-filled coffin while transforming into a Space Marine; a majority of applicants will suffer fatal mutations as their bodies reject these changes, while others will awaken prematurely and go insane from the experience.
*** Deconstructed after a bloody civil war leaves the Blood Angels near death because they can't replace their losses fast enough, forcing them to beg or order their successor chapters to give them some recruits.
** For the [[Literature/SpaceWolf Space Wolves]], ''dying'' is actually a prerequisite for joining. Their homeworld of Fenris is kept in a primitive state, encouraging inter-tribal warfare among its Viking-like societies. Sufficiently valorous young warriors who fall in battle are taken from the field, revived, and subjected to the usual Space Marine testing process. On top of this, the would-be Space Wolf must also learn to master his inner beast, lest he degenerate into a lupine abomination.
** Unlike other chapters, the Space Wolves group their newest members into fully-armored Blood Claw and Sky Claw packs (equivalent to the Assault Bikes or jetpack-wearing Assault Marines respectively), headstrong young glory hounds seeking to distinguish themselves and earn promotion. Their scout equivalents are actually older, more experienced warriors. This also continues all the way through their career; Space Wolf packs are set in stone at the Bloodclaw stage and they can never replace lost squad members. This is why Bloodclaws usually number 15-20, Grey Hunters (the next step) having from 10-5, and the eldest Longfangs having just barely 5 man squads; centuries of war prune the weaker members of the pack, leaving only the exceptionally strong. Lone Wolves are those who lost their entire pack to a random disaster, and have gone insane from the experience (and, along with Wolf Guards, are the only exceptions) and isolation, and are {{Death Seeker}}s to the point where if they ''aren't'' killed in battle the enemy gets Victory Points.
** The {{Literature/Ultramarines}} version includes a SecretTestOfCharacter; an aspirant is taken to a world completely unlike the one they were recruited from (a Feral World from a Hive World, for instance) and given an impossible task; the real goal isn't to complete it, but to adapt as a JackOfAllStats Space Marine would. A second test involves a duel with a full-fledged Space Marine, to see how the aspirant handles defeat.
** [[MadScientist Fabius Bile]], premier Apothecary for the [[EvilCounterpart Chaos Space Marine]] legions, has devised training and recruitment programs that put loyalist practices to shame -- he's whittled his success rate to 0.1% and is working hard to make the odds longer.
** [[DemonSlaying Grey Knights]]' training, on the other hand, would make even him proud. On top of all the physical training a normal Space Marine goes through, and on top of all the extra mental training a Space Marine ''[[PsychicPowers psyker]]'' goes through, they must endure [[NumberOfTheBeast 666]] [[MindRape mental and spiritual tortures]] to ensure that the survivors are [[IncorruptiblePurePureness utterly incorruptible]] [[DemonSlaying daemon hunters]].
*** The Exorcists are a successor Chapter of the Grey Knights who get an extra step to their initiation: the recruit gets a denizen of the Warp summoned into their body which is then exorcized. Despite the WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong premise, it actually works often enough that it's maintained, as the resulting process makes Exorcists invisible to all but the strongest of daemons.
** The Catachan Jungle Fighters of the Imperial Guard have a pretty straightforward initiation: [[DeathWorld survive to adulthood on Catachan.]]
** Literature/TheLastChancers are a [[BoxedCrook penal legion]] that undergoes training comparable to that of Space Marines. Colonel Schaeffer takes the best of the best from the worst of the worst (thousands upon thousands of military criminals who he thinks might be useful for whatever mission might be handed him), ending up with what in any other setting would amount to SurprisinglyEliteCannonFodder. Then he takes them through one hellish battlefield after another to separate the "elite" from the "fodder." The survivors get to join him in undertaking really important suicide missions given by the Inquisition which any sane commander would have sent Death Watch or Grey Knights to do instead.
** The [[SpaceElves Eldar]] take on this trope is slightly different: they [[DyingRace don't have the numbers]] to take a pool of untried applicants and kill off the incapable, so they use psychic training to produce the same result with just as much pain and suffering, but no casualties.
** Drukhari, also called the [[EvilCounterpart Dark Eldar]], have a surprisingly civilian version of this. They're known to [[UterineReplicator artificially inflate their numbers]] and have these souls join the civilian population, believing that the cream of the crop will rise up and will then make the best recruits of the kabals, wych cults, or haemonculus covens. In their city, where madness, death, pain, murder, torture, and slavery are all so commonplace as to be banal, and even a cornerstone of their society, the most meritorious Drukhari is synonymous with the most murderous and devious.
** The Tau [[ProudWarriorRace Fire Caste]] is composed entirely of soldiers inducted into the Tau military, given basic training, and sent into combat. After four years of active duty they're eligible for a variable Trial By Fire, which they'll either fail and remain at the current standing, fail and die, or pass and become [[MiniMecha battlesuit]] pilots. Another four years and another Trial earns them a spot as unit leader, and after their third Trial they're considered a general-in-training. ''Only'' a full [[FourStarBadass Shas'O]] is allowed to retire from the Tau military and become a teacher or advisor, everyone else serves until death. However, it's [[ALighterShadeOfGrey heavily downplayed]] compared to other examples here. In contrast to the Imperium, the Tau control a spec of galactic space and can't afford to throw bodies into a grinder to sort the wheat from the chaff; consequently, their training is more comprehensive and their equipment much better. Pound for pound, a green Fire Warrior strike team will walk all over a green Imperial Guard regiment, and they have the numbers advantage enough to give a Marine Scout squad a run for their money.
** Averted with orks, who are genetically engineered to be the ultimate warriors- they don't need training, just more fighting (which their fellow orks are happy to provide).
** Similarly to the Orks, the Tyranids are all designed to slaughter and devour (at least all the Tyranids that have been seen) and are also fully united under a single HiveMind. However, the Hive Mind will occasionally invoke this trope by making parts of the Hive Fleets go to war against each other. In-universe, the explanation is that the Hive Mind is culling weak elements out of its swarms and strengthening those that survive (out of universe, this is just to give players an excuse to have Tyranid vs Tyranid battles).
* This trope applies to the Black Guard of the [[OurElvesAreDifferent Dark Elves]] in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' fantasy. They are taken from their mothers at birth so they don't form any attachment to their families, then as soon as they are old enough, they are forced to fight each other to the death so that only the strongest survive. Those who live are somewhat prone to [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder murdering one another]], this being [[KlingonPromotion a recognised way of rising through the ranks]]. If they make it through two hundred years of service -- and it is implied many don't -- they can look forward to a high position at the Witch King's court, not that such a position [[DecadentCourt increases one's life expectancy]]. They're an interesting lot.
* The Get of Fenris in ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse'' are this trope to a T. They actively terrorize young cubs and deliberately push them past their breaking point to force them to overcome their weaknesses. Very notably it is the tribe that probably has the most washouts who fail and join another tribe. The Blood Talons in ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheForsaken'' aren't ''quite'' as bad, but their initiation rites are deliberately designed to leave you badly scarred.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* The Ravens of the ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore'' series are trained in this manner as well. Although the initial stages of the training are unknown, all applicants have prior combat experience as [[CannonFodder MT pilots]] and the final stage involves a literal do-or-die test against several opponents.
* Surprisingly, GDI's (the good guys') commando program in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberiumWars'', with a 22% fatality rate among the recruits and a 95% failure rate among the survivors, with the Commandoes starting off as the best the world has to offer.. Sounds bad until you [[FridgeBrilliance realize]] these commandos are ''always'' in training, there is no such thing as graduation, so it's literally the 5% of the troops who are still actively serving as a Commando.
** To make matters even more ridiculous, the Brotherhood of Nod's commando program is ''even worse.''
* The Silencer Corps of the ''VideoGame/{{Crusader}}'' series of games ''likely'' have something like this; the alternative is that they are vat-born and come preprogrammed with the requisite skills. This is implied to be true for the latest generation of Silencers; the older ones are indicated to be "old-fashioned".
* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'', brutal as it is, has some examples:
** Training pretty much WAS The Spartan Way prior to 31.01; casualty rates for sparring were brutally high, and the only way to safely train was to already '''be''' a legendary soldier. Now soldiers can train individually and have access to wooden training weapons, but you can always give them [[VideogameCrueltyPotential steel ones]]...
** The infamous community's version of [[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=91093.0 Dwarven "Child Care"]]. "It's like regular childcare, except with more dogs, and less care." The basic version is dumping children in small pits with irritable, semi-feral dogs and food, though more dementedly sophisticated methods have been dreamed up in the forums to instill physical toughness and psychological numbness.
* ''VideoGame/FieldCommander'' does this with both sides, while A.T.L.A.S is a more humane "You need a Medal of Honor and some sort of task that makes you a damn badass" to become a grunt, Shadow Nation's training of their appropriately named fodder is rather inhumane, cooped up in tiny cells being fed food devoid of nutrients, it turns their men to insane bloodthirsty beasts as a result, and their division commanders do not treat their men well even after they are sent out to the field.
* The Deep Ground Soldiers in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII: VideoGame/DirgeOfCerberus''. To the point that, when they're set free, they start a war because that's literally all they know how to do.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'', the final exam for [=SeeD=] candidates consists of sending the teenage cadets into a cave to beat up a god, then inserting them into a ''real'' military engagement and sending them in small units to engage numerically superior hordes of professional soldiers. Makes you wonder how [=SeeDs=] are tested when there aren't any wars going on. (Or, perhaps, would if there were EVER not a war going on.)
* The literally-named Spartan-[=II=]s from the ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' franchise were all kidnapped by the military at the age of six to be put through incredibly harsh training, complemented by high-level education. By the time the trainees turned 14, they all had the physiques of 18-year old Olympic athletes and, with nothing but dart guns and stun grenades, were fully capable of outfighting adult Marines armed with live ammunition. By the end their instructor had them going up against squads who were ''actually trying'' to kill them. And that's all ''before'' they received their [[PoweredArmor armor]] and [[BioAugmentation augmentations]]. The incredibly stringent selection criteria to become a trainee in the first place is probably the only reason why none of them were killed before they qualified for augmentation.
** The training of the young [[LaserGuidedTykeBomb war orphans]] who were to become the Spartan-[=III=]s was arguably even harsher, considering that most of them were expected to see [[SuicideMission action]] by the time they turned ''10-12 years old''.
** Averted with the Spartan-[=IV=]s, who are adult volunteers transferring from other branches who receive more standard (though still rigorous) training. The fact that they ''weren't'' trained this way may partly explain why they are notably inferior to the [=II=]s.
* ''VideoGame/GhostReconWildlands'' has Carl Bookhart, a former Army Ranger whose methods of training Santa Blanca's sicarios fall into this with live ammo and eating knives during combat drills. Those that manage to survive are elite soldiers for the cartel.
* The ''VideoGame/GodOfWar'' has one of the most literal examples of this trope. The protagonist Kratos is a Spartan himself, and although he rarely holds full discussions with anyone, he does make mentions of the exceptionally tough and hardy training of his own people. Flashbacks in ''VideoGame/GodOfWarGhostOfSparta'' show Kratos applying this training on his own brother (by repeatedly beating the ever living shit out of him while scolding him), whereas he is shown in [[VideoGame/GodOfWarPS4 the most recent title]] to continue the tradition by scolding his son for not beating the living shit out of his enemies nearly hard enough. Not to mention that brief time when Kratos [[VideoGame/GodOfWarII actually took on divine functions]] as titular God of War, meaning his people were not only taught the Spartan Way, but were also taught by an exceptionally angry, gigantic deity.
* Unsurprisingly, this shows up in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedOdyssey'' as the main character is Spartan and part of the plot takes place in Sparta. However, the main character is given the option [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch call them out]] on the unnecessary brutality and waste it produces, should you desire.
* In ''VideoGame/HalfLife1: Opposing Force'', during part of the training, there's a line of three people on the opposite side of a field firing full-powered machine guns. It's not only possible to die during this part, it's kind of hard NOT to die on the first try. All this just to learn cover.
* Arguably, {{VideoGame/XCOM}} soldiers aren't recruited from "the best of the best". Some are complete cowards who will panic and run at the first sign of danger. They get all of their combat experience from live combat exercises, often against aliens with roughly twice their number and better weapons. Training soldiers will be a pain until you at least get Laser Weapons, Medikits and Personal Armor.
** The trope really comes into play when in order to refill your ranks of veterans, you throw a squad of rookies against the aliens, knowing that some of them will die, in the hopes that the survivors will be tougher.
* ''VideoGame/{{Mousehunt}}'' has the [[TheHorde Marching Flame]], who train scouts like this:
--> "Training scouts in the art of hand-to-hand combat is a bit unique in the Marching Flame, though. Rather than spending months on the training grounds, they throw them directly into the first wave of the battle. If they survive, maybe they'll be promoted to something more. If not, there will always be another to step up in its place."
* The Rakkor tribe in ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'', being [[{{Expy}} expies]] of the Spartan had this way as a ritual as they worship the arts of war. However, they have another reason why they revel in it: Their food supplies were constantly strained so they only have foods for the strong ones. Those who completed the training will turn out to be utter badasses who lent their services to anyone who wants war, but they'll only accept when the side they fight for is outnumbered by one to ten. This is very much exemplified in the champion named Pantheon, considered a paragon to this tribe.
* The Spartan faction in ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri''. Not only are they ''named'' after the Spartans, their leader's big quote is ''"Superior training and superior weaponry have, when taken together, a geometric effect on overall military strength. Well-trained, well-equipped troops can stand up to many more times their lesser brethren than linear arithmetic would seem to indicate."'' Naturally, their training methods are revealed to be quite brutal, as yet ''another'' quote tells about a Spartan training officer breaking a recruit's arm to make him relearn his sloppy combat techniques.
** It is shown to be even ''more'' brutal than that in Michael Ely's ''Centauri Dawn'' novel, where children that were weaker than their peers were taken outside and had their throats cut by their teachers. The only exception ever made was for Victor Santiago, Colonel Corazon Santiago's son. By all rights he should've been killed as a boy, but his mother protected him (even though it went against their rules). Later, though, he manages to rally the Spartan troops in their hour of need to fight off the [[FaceFullOfAlienWingWong mind worms]].
* ''VideoGame/SystemShock2'', has one option in the player's character creation being a survival course with a "21.2% mortality rate". This actually seems quite low, considering it takes place on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Io_%28moon%29#Volcanism Io, the moon with 400 volcanoes]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Note that many military branches/units are fond of spreading exaggerated rumors about their training, because this makes them seem more badass to peers and enemies. So read the following entries with a grain of salt.
* Sparta, is of course the {{Trope Namer|s}} and the {{Trope Maker|s}}. The training for their male citizen-caste (starting from age 7, when they got separated from their family) consisted of not getting enough food, getting beaten for stealing food and getting caught, possibly getting beaten for disobedience to their older peers, and once a year getting ritually beaten for no reason whatsoever... and it topped of with murdering a defenseless slave at night. Real military training wasn't part of the deal.
** Thucydides describes the ''real'' Sparta (as opposed to Plato's idealized Sparta) as a thoroughly corrupt military dictatorship in his ''History of the Peloponnesian War'', so perhaps The Spartan Way is more or less a zig-zag of this trope.
** An UnbuiltTrope, after a fashion, since the goal of the Spartan agoge was to produce good citizens, rather than skilled soldiers (though it did realistically aid their usefulness as hoplites). Spartans only trained for battle on campaign after all allied contingents joined the army, so all warriors would learn the same skills. The Spartans were truly not soldiers as we would recognize - their day-to-day occupation was ''not'' engaging in or training for war, there's little evidence of them having effective weapons practice, and the centuries-long preconception of them being effective warriors may have been more [[BecomingTheMask Sparta trying to live up to the notion that they were post-Battle of Thermopylae]] with their victories thereafter being more attributable to the Spartans using basic formation drill and platoon-level units which made them far more wieldy on a tactical level than their adversaries.
** The Spartans continued their traditions ''long'' after time had rendered their tactics obsolete and the city militarily irrelevant. Wealthy Romans considered it a quaint tourist attraction.
** In the long term, even before the tactics themselves were obsolete, the system was hurting them badly. The regimented lifestyle and men not marrying until relatively late in life meant that they were permanently in a state of population decline; by the time they were conquered they didn't have the men to field a real army. It also hurt that because of the rigid social rules they had, no-one could join the "Spartians", but you ''could'' lose your status and that of your children, thus making the number of possible spartan soldiers dwindle with time.
** Sparta has given rise to various expressions in the Japanese language that means "tough, harsh training" (e.g., スパルタ教育 "Spartanesque schooling/education"). Some [[LostInTranslation poor translators]] might fail to account for that and that just literally translate it to "spartan", which in English merely means "lacking comfort".
** Scholars have noted that Sparta eventually suffered CripplingOverspecialization; they lived for warfare and nothing else, so it was a {{Dystopia}} for everyone who wasn't a free citizen -- their slaves were known to be harshly abused [[ExaggeratedTrope even by the standards of other Greeks.]] Their logistics and diplomacy were also terrible, since logistics means [[BoringButPractical working on food and transportation instead of the literal act of warfare,]] and they cared nothing for making friends or at least NOT-OFFENDING their allies.
* Ancient Roman military training, that included the soldiers exercising with an equipment twice as heavy as the actual weapons and armor and the trainers beating their soldiers with vine sticks was so harsh that the casualty rate was actually higher than during actual combat (hence the vine sticks: they caused harsh pain but didn't cause actual damage), leading to the motto "Bloody training and bloodless battles." And then we had the infamous centurion Lucilius nicknamed Cedo Alteram ("fetch me another"), a DrillSergeantNasty [[ExaggeratedTrope for Roman standards]] that got his nickname due his habit of beating the soldiers so hard he'd ''break the elastic vine stick'' and then shout his assistant to fetch him another stick ''so he could continue the beating'' ([[TheDogBitesBack the soldiers killed him in his sleep]]). And of course, who could not forget the Roman military tradition of [[LotteryOfDoom Decimation]]: If the soldiers performed poorly, committed desertion or had too little discipline, they were divided into groups of ten, and a drawing of lots would decide which one would be killed by the other nine.
* [[SemperFi U.S. Marine]] boot camp makes ''all'' trainees pass through ordeals that would compare to special operations training in some other countries. It culminates in a three-day ordeal called "The Crucible," which tests all the basic skills they were supposed to have learned up to that point. This three-day ordeal is marked by a lot of physical exercises, team-based objectives, and testing of every skill in basic training, all on four hours of sleep. (Not four hours of sleep a night -- four hours of sleep ''total''.)
** The Marines also lay claim to Force Recon (phasing out) and MARSOC as their elite level badasses.
* The US Navy [=SEAL=]s have a period of intense, brutal training called "Hell Week" that trainees must endure before they're allowed to begin the second third of SEAL training.
** SERE School, for survival, evasion, resistance, and escape, is given to military members who might be taken prisoner by enemy forces. Most people who go through it regard it as the worst part of training they experience. There are three levels of SERE training conducted depending on an individual's military occupation, rank, and probability of capture. Most of the training that takes place in at the highest levels of training is classified, and those who go through it aren't always fond of discussing it. It is commonly told that graduates are given a rabbit to kill and eat during exercises. Other exotic foods are on the menu as well. If you can catch 'em.
** Some of the exercises done to trainees during SERE school would be considered ''violations of the Geneva Conventions'' if done to enemy prisoners -- understandable, since not everyone who might take them prisoner is going to respect the Geneva Convention, and since many of the missions rely on the ability to plausibly claim that the people involved are not combatants from your country, a technicality that the Convention recognizes.
** SERE training operates on the theory that the only realistic way to prepare people to endure torture is to torture them for real. For obvious reasons they avoid using methods that inflict permanent physical or psychological damage, but that still leaves a tremendous amount of room in which to be ''really really awful''. Key word: "permanent".
** SERE training also operates on the assumption that ''everyone'' has a breaking point, no matter how much of a {{Determinator}} they (think they) may be. The point isn't so much to make you unbreakable as to teach you where that breaking point is, as well as how to cope and rebound once you've passed it.
* Army Rangers.
** Army Rangers may go on to complete Special Operations training and join Delta Force. Beyond that, it's all secret hush hush type stuff.
** The main difference between ordinary soldiers and the so-called elites, the Marines and Rangers in this case, is a one-time training course that is mostly psychological in hardship, and only varies in more intense and frequent exercise and the use of special skills. Deaths in training are usually preventable and the result of ignorance or carelessness by the chain of command either to prevent a marine's/soldier's risk or to help a marine/soldier at risk; this includes deaths by suicide. The Marine Corps and Ranger school also have more restrictions on who may enter, and it is mainly for this reason that they are viewed as elite, even though any military unit may have equally hard conditions and training in its regular activity.
* One of the Delta Force entrance exams consists of having to march through 40 kilometers of rugged country terrain in less than 10 hours, all the while carrying 40 pounds of gear. Sounds bad? Did we forget to mention that they give you the absolute bare minimum of navigational information to find the endpoint of the route? Hope you didn't miss a turn.
* The USAF's Combat Controllers. They have to maintain qualification as Air Traffic Controllers (which is probably the ''second'' most stressful job in the world, the first being ''soldier'').
** USAF Pararescue Training. They are the US military's Combat Search and Rescue specialists, and their pipeline is known as "Superman School".
** Should also mention the USAF's Special Operations Weather Technicians. All three Air Force Special Tactics operators are well-respected in the military community as badasses. Before they even begin their job training, ALL Special Tactics hopefuls complete BMT, then a six week Indoctrination course. Called "Indoc" it is the most grueling ordeal most trainees have ever been through -- including such novel practices as performing calisthenics while wearing diving masks. Filled with water. Indoc washes out a great deal of candidates due to the harsh training. And then it gets worse.
* The British SAS are generally considered extremely tough also. The final stage of their 4-week Selection training is known as "Endurance", a forty mile march across the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brecon_Beacons Brecon Beacons]], completed in less than twenty hours carrying more than fifty-five pounds of weight, plus water, food and rifle. They then get to proceed to the six weeks in the Malaysian jungle. Then the survival training, then the interrogation training...and after all that, they are effectively on probation for a year, with many being returned to their parent unit in that time as unsuitable.
** The sister unit of the SAS, The SASR, better known as the Australian SAS, has similar methods. To date, more people have died in training for the SASR than they have for combat. Admittedly this includes 15 people dying in a helicopter crash, but it still stands.
** The British army has a nasty reputation for killing more people off via "disciplinary" measures ("beasting", where you're made to do the exercises again.. and again.. and again, this time in NBC gear) than in the actual functional part of the training, though. One recruit died this way over dropping a chocolate wrapper; another for shouting in the officers' mess. Apparently they have yet to get rid of the DrillSergeantNasty.
* The British Royal Marines have the longest and arguably most difficult training of any non-special forces unit. The Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre trains inside the Arctic Circle, including areas used for the location shots of the planet Hoth in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack''.
* The Parachute Regiment is also somewhat notorious; according to the memoirs of Major Peter 'Billy' Radcliffe, bare-knuckle fights between squads of aspiring Paras were actively encouraged by their drill instructors at least as late as the 1960s, thought 'Bloody Sunday' may have resulted in a change of philosophy. The very nature of parachute training accounts for a fair number of additional casualties.
* The French Foreign Legion -- in case none of the above is tough enough for you. With its methods based on sheer cruelty, and its diverse training grounds, ranging from the snow-laden slopes of the French Pyrenees through the rainforests of Guyane (aka "The Green Hell") to the dunes of the Sahara, it stands a pretty good chance of killing you. Motto: "March or die!" Women are not allowed to join. (Hear it from [[MadeOfIron Bear Grylls]] himself: [[https://web.archive.org/web/20050720233553/http://www.channel4.com/life/microsites/E/escape_to_the_legion/recruits_bear.html "I hadn't expected it to be so tough, having spent several years in the SAS."]])
** The Foreign Legion is notorious for its high rate of ''suicide'' in training. Today it's only about .5% that can be proved, but historically suicides in training from those who simply can't take it any more but won't wash out has run higher.
* Japanese military training during WWII and the "China incident" took this to an extreme. Not only was the training extremely brutal a Japanese soldier was not considered fully trained until he killed a prisoner of war with a sword or bayonet. Some units even went so far as to eat their victims. We wish we were making this up.
** Japanese training might have been brutal, but that doesn't mean it was particularly good. The Japanese Army took casualties at the same rate (averaged for the entire war) as the Red Army in 1941. The Kwangtung Army in Manchuria was no match for the experienced and highly mechanized Red Army -- the Soviet offensive sliced through the Japanese and achieved military victory in just over a week.
** Soviet stereotypes aside, Soviet forces in Manchuria were actually ''surprised'' and ''shocked'' to see the Japanese use human-wave attacks and men strapping explosives to themselves as suicide anti-tank weapons.
** The Japanese Air Force in WWII also had really demanding training. The pilots who passed it were excellent, but way, way too few. The Americans on the other hand not only produced more pilots, but could also afford to send combat-experienced pilots back to train new ones—while the Japanese couldn't spare any of theirs.
*** In addition to not being able to spare some, the Japanese outright did not have a system for the veterans to train the newbies. The Americans did it on a systematic level while the Japanese Aces did it on a personal level if at all. The famous Zero fighter being a FragileSpeedster[[note]]And in the longer term, not even a speedster. From the Hellcat on, American planes could outrun the Zero, outturn it at ''high'' speed when its controls virtually locked up, and in general fight only when they felt like it and bug out when they didn't. The Chance-Vought Corsair had a kill:loss ratio of 11:1 against Japan[[/note]] that is prone to ''[[MadeOfIncendium burst in flames]] after [[OneHitPointWonder being hit once]]'' doesn't help either.
* The German Wehrmacht during WWII fits the trope as well. During basic training 1% fatal casualties were expected and even encouraged, and that's just for the casual soldiers.
* Forces from both the Soviet Union, and its successor, the Russian Federation, are notorious for harshness. The rank and file training for conscripted men not put into anything special such as Naval Infantry, VDV, or Border Guards, was considered tough. The training was tough, long, and continuous. Constant exercises, drills, and repetition characterized it. Russian elite troops such as the aforementioned marines, paratroopers, and guards, have even tougher standards. Of these, the Naval Infantry is considered the toughest. The VDV is open to women. However, no woman has managed to meet the physical requirements necessary to pass for a long time; in 2013 the Ryazan VDV Officer School finally released its first 14 female VDV lieutenants.
** Speaking of the "notoriously poorly trained" Red Army, this only held true for the vast number of troops mass-conscripted for WWII. Many established Red Army divisions were decently trained, if badly organized. In line with this trope, however, were the Siberian divisions, who were practically "trained" to be effective in winter combat by the brutal Russian winters in the notoriously cold Siberian regions. Many of these Siberian units, once diverted to the Eastern Theater against the Germans, were instrumental in the counter-push that booted the Germans out of the USSR.
*** These are more accurately called Far East divisions -- from the border with Japan, where the one Soviet peacetime front existed, and the so called peace had a good portion of battles of all scales thrown in -- for about two decades.
** Russian special forces (the Spetsnaz) are notorious for this, going through training that wouldn't be tolerated by human rights groups in any western country.
** Example, possibly apocryphal: during military training, adherence to NBC drill is tested in a room filled with CS gas, a non-lethal incapacitant (i.e. tear gas). Rumour had it that Spetznaz NBC training is "live" -- i.e. uses real, lethal nerve gas.
** One non-fiction book written about Spetsnaz training claims that they routinely held river-crossing and small-boat drills in full field gear -- without any provision for lifeguards or search-and-rescue. If you couldn't avoid drowning, then you're not Spetsnaz material.
* NORFORCE, the force responsible for defending the north of Australia includes in their training, dumping potential recruits into the rainforests in small groups equipped with knives and not much else to survive of what they can find. After a little while of this, and without giving them food or rest, they have whatever they've scavenged taken away, are lectured on important things they need to know, put into new groups, and they are dumped somewhere else. This happens two or three times. Apparently, the course is so popular, there's a several year waiting list.
** To be entirely fair, NORFORCE's training isn't an unreasonable thing for an Australian to learn given local weather conditions and teaches vital teamwork skills (again, mostly useful because of weather conditions).
* Brazil's BOPE (Special Police Operations Battalion) is well known for their rigorous training, acting mostly on urban warfare. There is a movie focused on the group, [[Film/TheEliteSquad "The Elite Squad"]], famous for its shock value. Their logo is a skull pierced by a knife and two guns on the background; their main vehicle is called "big skull".
** One Native Brazilian tribe, the Satere-Mawe, train to be warriors by intentionally stinging themselves by bullet ants. Bullet ants have the ''highest'' ranking on the Schmidt pain index, which he described as "Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail grinding into your heel." It lasts ''almost 24 hours.'' They do it '''''20 times'''''.
*** Bullet ants are an inch long, the size of a bullet. This is not why they're called bullet ants. They're called bullet ants because being stung feels like ''being shot.'' The Satere-Mawe sew entire swarms of bullet ants into sleeves (stinger-end pointed inside) and stick their arms into the mess, wearing these sleeves for something around 10 minutes. After spending several days recovering, they do it again. And again. 20 times.
* The Swedish army is probably somewhat less badass than most of these examples. Still, they deserve an honorary mention, since part of the basic training of every Swedish soldier involves being ''set on fire.'' True, the soldiers are wearing protective clothing and their battle buddies are expected to put the fire out within seconds (the whole point of the exercise is to get used to putting out fires in case your unit is attacked with incendiaries). But still... ''set on fire.''
** Same in the Finnish army. Plus also the GasChamber for gas mask training.
*** Must be noted though that gas used isn't same concentration as the real thing.
** The gas mask training was and is standard for Eastern Bloc armies: lead the soldiers into a nearly-airtight plastic tent, gas masks on, and drop a tear gas grenade inside. The catch is: each trooper has to tend his field gear and assure the mask is in perfect order, so anyone who gets gassed [[HoistByHisOwnPetard is punished for his own neglect]].
* China's People's Liberation Army & People's Armed Police, with more young men wishing to join than they have room for, selects only the most physically fit without any physical "defects". Things like nearsightedness, tattoos, being over the age of 21, and inadequate education are amongst many disqualifiers. Once they do get accepted, the average infantry undergoes brutal training where they are expected to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=29JgSjKdIUU#t=138s "hold bricks on their heads while others smash it to bits with a sledge hammer"]], or play "hot potato with explosives." This is only the regular forces, but there is a reason why their special forces won 8 1st places in the 2009 international military competitions in Slovakia, first place in the 2011 Sniper World Cup, and best overall performance at the Fifth Warrior Competition organised by the Jordan Armed Forces at the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Centre. In other words, they competed against US, UK, and Russian special forces and won.
** Although it should be noted that NATO takes a Ned Stark-esque view of these events, and does not send its best, whilst China does.
* The British Royal Flying Corps in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI refused to issue parachutes to its pilots on the rationale that the possibility of surviving being shot down would make them go soft. [[DeconstructedTrope It turned out, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, that this was a bad idea]]; it's one thing to throw half-trained rookies into the trenches until it was time to bayonet-charge that machine gun emplacement for the hundredth time, but quite another to throw half-trained rookies into the cockpit of a difficult-to-operate and quite expensive piece of military hardware. Unfortunately it took them until the war was nearly over to work this out.
* Russian conscripts have to endure a tradition known as ''Dyedovshchina'', meaning "Reign of the Granddads," in which senior conscripts severely haze the new recruits, ranging from simply doing extra chores to rape. It is unofficial, and leads to much trauma and even deaths of some recruits, mostly from suicide but outright murders aren't unheard of.
* The [[RedBaron Golden Division]] of the Iraqi Army was trained by the United States to be a counter-terrorism squad akin to SEAL. As such, their training involved methods quite similar to the aforementioned SEAL training. In addition to to being highly trained and disciplined, many of its members are also [[ChurchMilitant very religious]], giving the unit an extra level of motivation. Tellingly, when the Iraqi Army collapsed against ISIS in 2014, the Golden Division was one of the few units that remained active at peak capacity. Unfortunately, due to their reliability, they have been repeatedly deployed in theatres they were not equipped or trained to deal with. The intense, months long urban fighting across Mosul, in particular, has [[https://www.buzzfeed.com/mikegiglio/on-the-front-lines-of-the-fight-with-isis?utm_term=.kcP363MVb#.owNQrQwpV taken a toll on the numbers]].
* The Italian ''Bersaglieri'' were originally created as an infantry force meant to take on cavalry. As such they need excellent running abilities and stamina, and to develop that they ''always'' run. Also, their marching band plays brass instruments only-while still running.
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* Brazilian's BOPE (Special Police Operations Battalion) is well known for their rigorous training, acting mostly on urban warfare. There is a movie focused on the group, [[Film/TheEliteSquad "The Elite Squad"]], famous for its shock value. Their logo is a skull pierced by a knife and two guns on the background; their main vehicle is called "big skull".