History Main / TheSpartanWay

* ''WebComic/MagickChicks'': Artemis Academy is [[OneGenderSchool an all girl military school]] [[DemonSlaying for monster hunters]] in training. As such, their curriculum includes full-contact combat exams where anything is allowed: even [[https://pixietrixcomix.com/magick-chicks/a-flashy-spell use of summons.]] They consider [[https://pixietrixcomix.com/magick-chicks/cheatin-powers defending their school]] from the boys at Apollo Academy to be a recreational sport. And according to their rules: the penalty for being caught trespassing, during a [[PantyThief breastplate raid]], is [[https://pixietrixcomix.com/magick-chicks/school-protocol a broken appendage.]]

* The eponymous family/ethnic group/master race of ''Literature/YnglingaSaga''.

* In ''Manga/{{Touch}}'', Coach Kashiwaba's training methods are cruel and even outright criminal. But they work, whether he likes it or not.

-->-- '''Website/BadassOfTheWeek''' on [[http://badassoftheweek.com/sealteamsix.html the US Navy SEALs]]

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. [[GenreBlind One wonders how they've calculated the point where the gain in quality stops being worth the loss in numbers.]]

* ''Anime/BurstAngel'' runs with this and then [[UpToEleven 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".

* 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. It MakesSenseInContext that they'd all be that way, since they're Mafiosi.

* In the Creator/MarvelComics AlternateContinuity ''ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse'', Colossus is shown training young mutants for the fight against Apocalypse, expecting them to kill each other to ensure that only the very best remain. He and Shadowcat also actively go after them during training, to ensure that this is what happens. They only get away with it because ComicBook/{{Magneto}} is currently preoccupied with other matters, though.

* The Franchise/DCUniverse:
** 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 Franchise/{{Superman}} ''to death'']]. (This blurs the line between this trope and just TrainingFromHell, depending on your view of CloningBlues.)

* Among the Toys/GIJoe action figures (whose backgrounds and file cards were written by Larry Hama, primary author of the comic series), most Cobra soldier types from the Strato-Viper onward were given intense training. Alley-Vipers (urban troopers) had to take a full burst of automatic fire across their body armour and run down a gas-filled corridor without a gas-mask. Night-Vipers were raised from a young age in unlit, windowless bunkers. Range-Vipers (jungle troopers) were not given any supplies or rations and had to live off the land and steal ammunition from enemy ammo dumps. Night Vultures (aerial recon troopers) were given no formal training before being dropped over shark infested waters with their hang gliders at least five miles from land. Most Cobra Vipers also received some form of physiological augmentation. When questioned in the letters pages of the [[ComicBook/GIJoeARealAmericanHeroMarvel G.I. Joe comic]], Hama said: "Cobra has no ethical limitations on research and no lack of willing volunteers."

* The movie ''Film/NakedWeapon'' features a wide variety of pubescent girls being kidnapped from around the world and sent to a tropical island. After immediately killing anybody who says 'Yes, I wanna go home!', they spend the next six years in a nonstop boot camp teaching the girls everything there is to know about firearms, human anatomy, unarmed combat, and social interaction, honing them into the world's finest assassins. As a penultimate final exam, they are assembled in their barracks and told that they have two minutes to kill half their number or they will all die. In the actual final exam, they are forced to compete in a gladiator-style tournament until only one remains. However, their "performance" is so great that the Madam allows three to survive instead. They get drugged and raped on their graduation, just to drive home that their bodies are not their own.
* The commandos in the film ''Film/{{Soldier}}'' are raised brutally from birth and treated brutally thereafter, only to be replaced by a new generation of genetically engineered soldiers.
* Exaggerated to parody during the tour of Royalton Industries in the ''Film/SpeedRacer'' movie: Royalton racers need to be able to eat noodles with chopsticks on a centrifuge, pass an eye exam on a vibrating chair, and take a jet turbine's worth of freezing air to the ''face''.
* In the film version of ''Film/StarshipTroopers'', the [[DrillSergeantNasty Drill Instructor]] takes on the biggest new recruit (casually breaking his arm), the new transfer recruit (rendering her unconscious with a knee to the carotid artery), and pinning a third's hand to a wall (for asking why they need to learn ground maneuvers when you can simply push a button on a nuke). Each time, after using said recruit for the "training demonstration," the DI causally calls, "Medic!"

* ''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.

* 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 fatalaties, 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.

* 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

* 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 George R. R. Martin'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.

* ''Literature/TrappedOnDraconica'': The lifestyle of all Leonidans is intense physical training from the age of five. There is enough evidence to call it ''[[TropeMaker the original]]'' spartan way.

* 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 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.]]

* ''Series/PowerRangersSamurai'': [[spoiler:Most of Lauren Shiba's life after being hidden can be summed up as this: Train, Exercise, Practice the Sealing Symbol.]]

* In ''Series/Titans2018'' {{deconstruction}} of {{Kid Sidekick}}s their training is shown to be HarmfulToMinors. Dick Grayson mentions how Bruce Wayne took him to a cabin in the woods, then made him go out into the dark to face his fears. One scene shows the young Grayson being chased through the woods by a wolf. The next scene shows him entering the cabin [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehaviour holding a bloody knife]], then [[DecapitationPresentation dumping the wolf's head on the table]].

** 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 PowerArmor 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 gladiatoral 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.

** 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 DeathSeekers to the point where if they ''aren't'' killed in battle the enemy gets Victory Points.

* 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.

* 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 maching 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.

* ''VideoGame/SystemShock 2'', 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]].

* ''Webcomic/BlueYonder'': [[http://www.blueyondercomic.net/comics/1684749/interlude-2-the-black-dog-page-2/ The training starts by pushing you off the mountainside.]]

* ''WebComic/MagickChicks'': Artemis Academy is [[AllGirlSchool an all girl military school]] [[DemonSlaying for monster hunters]] in training. As such, their curriculum includes full-contact combat exams where anything is allowed: even [[http://www.magickchicks.com/strips-mc/a_flashy_spell use of summons.]] They consider [[http://www.magickchicks.com/strips-mc/cheatin_powers defending their school]] from the boys at Apollo Academy to be a recreational sport. And according to their rules: the penalty for being caught tresspassing, during a [[PantyThief breastplate raid]], is [[http://www.magickchicks.com/strips-mc/school_protocol a broken appendage.]]

* Quite possibly ''the'' most abused trope on ''Website/NationStates'', sometimes taken UpToEleven by turning an entire state into this.

* Sparta, is of course the TropeNamer and the TropeMaker. 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.

** 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 [[UpToEleven 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 [[UpToEleven 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.

* 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 ''The Empire Strikes Back''.

* 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: [[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."]])

* 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 necesssary to pass for a long time; in 2013 the Ryazan VDV Officer School finally released its first 14 female VDV lieutenants.

* 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 there times. Apparently, the course is so popular, there's a several year waiting list.

* 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 disqualfiers. 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 [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=gA5WDVhttu4#t=85s "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.

* The British Royal Flying Corps in World War 1 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.

* In ''Series/Titans2018'' {{deconstruction}} of {{Kid Sidekick}}s their training is shown to be HarmfulToMinors. Dick Grayson mentions how Bruce took him to a cabin in the woods, then made him go out into the dark to face his fears. One scene shows the young Grayson being chased through the woods by a wolf. The next scene shows him entering the cabin [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehaviour holding a bloody knife]], then [[DecapitationPresentation dumping the wolf's head on the table]].

* In ''Series/Titans'', Bruce Wayne's training of his {{Kid Sidekick}}s is denounced as HarmfulToMinors. Dick Grayson mentions how Bruce took him to a cabin in the woods, then made him go out into the dark to face his fears. One scene shows the young Grayson being chased through the woods by a wolf. The next scene shows him entering the cabin [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehaviour holding a bloody knife]], then [[DecapitationPresentation dumping the wolf's head on the table]].

* The Clan Warriors in ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'': eugenically selected, 'birthed' in artificial wombs, raised for their specific missions from childhood, then pitted against each other in live-fire conflicts to determine their fitness, and any who don't die or earn a "Bloodname" before the age of 35 are considered washed up.
** Of course, the "Common, low-born" [=MechWarriors=] of the Inner Sphere still keep winning in all the PC games made around the franchise. The downside to the Clan Warrior training: enemies that ''don't'' follow the Clan Warrior rules are very difficult to deal with.
** This is about the only way to explain the opening cinematic of the first ''VideoGame/MechCommander'' game. Clanner that forgets that Spheroids are back-shooting, dogpiling CombatPragmatist stravags, so lets himself get shot in the back not once but TWICE, and tunnels on the latest opponent to shoot at him.
** The first wave of the clan invasion was very strict, but the second and onwards were known to play fast and loose with the honour rules up to the point of using "headhunter stars" -- small groups of power armoured infantry dropped on areas believed to contain enemy commanders. Finally do something sufficiently disgraceful and the rules will get thrown out the window...
*** The strictness is also analogous to the Napoleonic era 'rules' of both armies having to fight by standing directly across from one another then firing. ANY other form of combat is going to wreck that army's day, since they're overly specialised in handling a single format.
** Clan warrior caste also use "trials" of various types ranging from fistfights to fully armed mech combat to determine everything from rights to particular appointments to ones guilt and innocence in treason charges.
** The resident DeadpanSnarker in ''[[VideoGame/MechWarrior MechWarrior III]]'', after noticing one clan commander's willingness to sacrifice his own to defeat the player, quipped "Whatever happened to that old Clan ideal of 'honorable combat'?"
** To put numbers to it, Clan Warriors are usually grown in "Sibkos" of 100, on average about 20 make it to warriorhood. Roughly half are washed out and get assigned to other castes, the rest aren't so lucky. Though this varies from Clan to Clan, too: strict Clans like the Smoke Jaguars and Jade Falcons will kick someone out of the program for the first screw-up, but others like the Ghost Bears and Hell's Horses are known for offering someone who screwed up 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 permanently lose their chance at warriorhood, though.

* 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 once. The attrition rate is about 50%, but those aren't all fatalaties, 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 ''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 once. The attrition rate is about 50%, but those aren't all fatalaties, 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 forest in and leave you to fend for yourself over the winter.

* 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 once. The attrition rate is about 50%, but those aren't all fatalaties, 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 forest for the winter and leave you to fend for yourself.

* 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 once. The attrition rate is about 50%, but those aren't all deaths, some just wash out. They do differ from the standard in one respect: instead of being starved they feed their trainees 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 forest for the winter and leave you to fend for yourself.

* 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. The attrition rate is about 50%, but those aren't all deaths, some just wash out. They do differ from the standard in one respect: instead of being starved they feed their trainees 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 forest for the winter and leave you to fend for yourself.

* 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".

If you hear the term "SuperSoldier", it will usually involve this. This will often result in a BadassArmy if done properly and taken to the proper level. May result in SacrificedBasicSkillForAwesomeTraining if the soldiers aren't given a balanced education outside of warfare. When this kind of training is actually simply a way of living due to living in a tough environment, you get HadToBeSharp.

* ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'': In boot camp, less than ''10%'' of all recruits get through boot camp and their officers are always soldiers with previous combat experience (you go through boot and go into battle, and if you excel, you may be snapped up for OCS). Somewhat a deconstruction because they constantly suffer manpower problems during the Bug War. It's worth noting that of the 90% that didn't pass boot, less than 1% died, and the training the first weeks is designed to weed out those who don't want the citizenship completed military service grants badly enough, and the surviving washouts can reapply in a few years.

* Spoofed on ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'', where a regiment of Scottish kamikazes have a 100% fatality rate in training.

** 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. Last year 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.

* In ''Webcomic/BlueYonder'', [[http://www.blueyondercomic.net/comics/1684749/interlude-2-the-black-dog-page-2/ the training starts by pushing you off the mountainside.]]

%%** ''Webcomic/SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal'' has this [[http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=95#comic driving school.]]
* In ''Webcomic/YokokasQuest'', the Darkness Clan is a dangerous place, for both its inhabitants and outsiders, best described by its leader in the below quote:

* 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 hazard 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).

* The training of [[SuperSoldier Space Marines]] in ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' 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 PowerArmor 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).

** 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 packs, 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.

** 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.

* Invoked by ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' when the crew rescues five male teenagers from a Talarian "basic training" ship, one of whom turns out to be a human boy raised by Talarians. The Talarians (at least, the males, as Talarians and their military are highly patriarchal) are depicted as a warrior society where male children are essentially raised by their military. The human boy, Jono AKA Jeremiah, even calls his adoptive father, Endar, his "Captain," and the crew assumes Endar abuses him because Dr. Crusher's medical exam shows a history of broken bones. However, when Endar shows up to get his son back, it's evident that, although Talarian society expects macho warrior behavior from Jono and his peers, Endar clearly loves Jono and is affectionate toward him in ways that are appropriate in their culture. He even threatens to start a war over the kid, despite his squadron of warships being significantly outgunned by the ''Enterprise''. It's not played completely straight because the crew spend a lot of time assuming that Endar must be some kind of monster, even though Jono's medical history is fairly typical for a boy raised by Talarians who encourage males to be physically competitive and participate in high-risk sporting events, in a NotSoDifferent way from high school athletes. But the existence of underage teens in military uniforms aboard a military training vessel being typical of (male) Talarian child-rearing is this trope.

* 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 [[UpToEleven 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]]).

** That one is drawn from propaganda about SS officer candidate school in Nazi Germany requiring cadets to do the same thing. ''Probably'' propaganda.

* 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 [[DeadlyDecadentCourt increases one's life expectancy]]. They're an interesting lot.

* Sparta, is of course the TropeNamer and the TropeMaker. They did suffer from BadassDecay in later years, though.

** 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.