Knight In Sour Armor / Literature

• Older Than Feudalism: Confucius in Analects 18.7 "A superior man takes office, and performs the righteous duties belonging to it. As to the failure of right principles to make progress, he is aware of that."
• Princess Trini in A Brother's Price is just a minor character, but what we see of her fits this. She is very pessimistic about Jerin's character, pointing out that her sisters were deceived before. Eventually, though, when she is told that he might be in danger, she quickly forgets about her former suspicions and decides to marry him so that the family of her ex-husband doesn't get him. It could be partly revenge, but she is also shown to be quite aware of the issue of poverty in her realm, so it is reasonable to believe that it was mostly selfless.
  Trini: I wouldn't give a dog to the Porters.
• Chant from A Conspiracy of Truths describes both Consanza and himself as this at one point, saying that unlike Ylfing, they both have seen the ugly parts of humanity and are disgusted by them, but are still unwilling to give up on humanity entirely.
• Most of the main characters are this to some extent in Animorphs:
  • Jake started off wanting to fight to free Tom and save the world. As the series progressed, he became more hardened and cynical, realizing that there was no help coming, and it was just as likely that he end up killing Tom as saving him. Despite that, he continued the fight and made the hard decisions, because he had to do something, and fighting the Yeerks was the right thing to do.
  • Despite all the battles he won, and all the blows he struck against the Yeerk Empire, Elfangor wasn't even sure he was making a difference.
• A few in A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Though Jon Snow starts off the series as a Wide-Eyed Idealist with dreams of being a gallant defender for the Night's Watch, his idealism is slowly chipped away by this series' Crapsack World over the course of the books. Still, he believes wholeheartedly in his father's beliefs about goodness and decency, is honorable and heroic, and strives to do the right thing but — though he doesn't feel good about going against rules — will compromise them when necessary, in order to do what's right and protect innocent lives.
  • Daenerys Targaryen suffers for her kindness after saving Mirri Maz Duur, but chooses to continue her mission of liberating & fighting for the oppressed anyway.
  • Eddard Stark is very honorable, believes in duty, but thinks the world sucks and most people don't care for anything. However, he keeps trying, holds onto his goodness, largely adheres to a strict code of honour and does what's right, which gets him killed, but these latter two things aren't always the same thing. As a result, though he is uncomfortable doing so, he is willing to sacrifice his honor in some instances for the sake of doing the right thing.
  • Adding the Hound to this page would involve unwisely calling him a knight. However, his armour is made of the purest citric acid. Even he would cop to that.
  • There's also Tyrion Lannister, who's snarktastic and has contempt or hatred for most of those around him (because they either assume he's a Lannister and think he's untrustworthy, or see that he's dwarf and dislike him based on that), but he truly tried to do what was best for the kingdom. He also showed his concern by designing a special saddle for Bran after his fall and went back to Winterfell to give them his design, although he knew he would not be much welcome there.
  • Jaime Lannister surprises himself far more than anybody else by gradually regaining principles to (snarkily) defend and genuinely believe in after years of resigning himself to being the bad guy in a clearly Crapsack World, since believing in inherent goodness and nobility is what failed him the first time. The process is spotty, but, dammit, he's going to give doing the right thing a shot... and, sod the consequences!
  • Davos Seaworth has seen (and done) a lot of illegal and corrupt shit in his life, but still maintains a belief in the rightness of fairly-applied, impartial justice and the rule of law. Which is why he's Stannis Baratheon's Jiminy Cricket. However wonky and venal the world they're trying to improve.
• Sturm Brightblade of Dragonlance has watched the Knights of Solamnia he grew up idolizing turn into earnest failures at best and corrupt monsters at worst. He has the darkest sense of humor of any of the main cast outside of Raistlin, and yet he is truer to the knights' code than most of the knights who were actually given full status.
• Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's main character, is explicitly described by the author as a 'knight in shining armor' despite being a Deadpan Snarker First-Person Smartass.
  "I looked down at the chessboard. The move with the knight was wrong. I put it back where I had moved it from. Knights had no meaning in this game. It wasn't a game for knights." — The Big Sleep
  • Chandler even gives him a "Princess In Sour Dress", Linda Loring, in The Long Goodbye.
• Mina Davis of Hungover and Handcuffed and Asshole Yakuza Boyfriend follows proudly in Marlowe's snarky footsteps.
• Terry Pratchett's Discworld.
  • Sam Vimes. He's described as possibly being slightly knurd in his natural state — anti-drunk, which means seeing things horribly clearly without all the normal fuzzy self-deception that makes life bearable — and yet, he's one of the most incorruptible, moral, and downright decent characters on the Disc, hands down. (Vimes is also literally a sour knight, having been elevated into the ranks of nobility against his wishes — he feels it makes him a class traitor.)
  • Granny Weatherwax. Witches Abroad alludes the idea Granny was a good candidate for a "bad witch," until her sister took up the role and she had to balance it out. Granny's adamant belief in Right and Wrong over anything else is predicated on the fact that neither of those necessarily involve what someone (including herself) would like to do.
  • Lord Vetinari, as seen from his speech in Unseen Academicals. He describes in his younger days he once witnessed, as part of the natural order of things, a mother otter has killed a salmon and brought it to her young to feed on. Upon ripping open the fish's guts, hundreds of eggs fall out and are a feast to the otter pups. As he describes it, a mother and children feasting upon mother and children.
    "Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior."
  • Death gives a metaphysical version of the idea in Hogfather: Notions like justice or mercy are not found in the universe — not one atom — but humans need to believe in them in order to make it so that they are.
• The Dresden Files has a few of these.
  • Karrin Murphy:
    • Her lawfulness causes her to threaten to throw the book at Harry more often than she'd like. She also gets angry when an archangel uses her as a mouthpiece when she takes up one of the Swords of the Cross.
    • Karrin Murphy is being forced toward a change in worldview by the realization of the cold fact that the law, which she idolized (almost literally) in early books is just simply inadequate to deal with the reality of the world as she has come to know it. She's also begun to realize just how much Harry was protecting her, even when she angrily insisted she wanted no such protection; now she knows she needed it...and resents that fact.
    • In Blood Rites, when Harry looks upon Murphy with his Sight, she appears as an angel, but one that has been covered in blood and soot and is bearing terrible wounds - a direct contrast to the more idealistic image of a pure angel in shining white clothes that she appears as in Grave Peril, four books earlier when she is still an idealistic cop who hasn't had her faith in the law twisted and abused.
  • Donald Morgan is also ultimately revealed to be one. For a long time he just seems like a nasty, abusive Jerkass Knight Templar, but over the course of the series it is gradually revealed that he really does believe in the White Council's laws, and most of nastiness comes from being a tired, bitter man who has spent his entire extended lifespan fighting the forces of darkness.
  • Harry himself has elements of this trope. He can be pretty cynical, but he always tries to do the right thing.
    Willamena: It sounds like you don't think very highly of people, Mr. Dresden.
    Harry: People suck. But persons are worthwhile, Miss Rogers. Always.
• Councillor Arfarra in Yulia Latynina's Wei Empire Cycle started out as a Knight Templar. By the first large novel, he became sourly disillusioned in The Empire and somewhat penitent, but soldiered on trying to reform it, ultimately failing despite doing some good in the process. Then he became even more disillusioned in the very foundations of the Empire, and spent twenty-five years in exile. Then he got dragged back unto the political scene, and very reluctantly took control, this time just trying to keep the whole thing running and to avoid having the world drowned in blood in a horrible civil war. He sort of failed due to circumstances far beyond his control, but kept relentlessly looking for ways to at least marginally improve the situation right until finally dying from old age.
• From the Harry Potter series:
  • Severus Snape allies himself with people like Harry (who he hates because he's the son of the woman he loved by the man he hated), Sirius Black (who he hated nearly as much as James Potter and who tried to kill him at least once), and Dumbledore, whom, in spite of affection, he allows to use him ruthlessly. He's also the only one of the heroes who is willing to get branded as a traitor by making a huge sacrifice for their cause (namely, Albus Dumbledore). Additionally, his motives, in the beginning, weren't the purest - as Lily was his Lost Lenore, he made it fairly clear that he was Not in This for Your Revolution and pretty much entirely motivated by Lily's memory at first. Later his actions that would have been hard to envision by any reader in previous books - risking cover to save Lupin’s life, defending Harry from Dumbledore’s plan and yet continuing with it despite the fact it would, as far as he knows, completely defeat his previously claimed motivation it is all for Lily’s memory, as her son would be sacrificed after all in favour of defeating Voldemort, and his curious remarks on his soul and “Only those whom I could not save” - show that as much as we found out about Snape in the Prince’s Tale and despite the general impression from this we are as familiar with his character as with Dumbledore’s or Harry’s, the chapter raises more questions about his true thoughts than it answers them - we still don’t really know the man, as in, what really motivated him in all those moments and how Dumbledore could be confident of his dedication to the plan despite all these challenges even after Dumbledore himself is no longer there, but it suggests an element of genuine care for the cause of good side beyond his initial personal motives, especially since there is really nothing in it for him. The contrast between the scene at the hilltop and the scene in Dumbledore’s office sixteen years later, as well as his later actions, suggest an only-glimpsed-at Heel–Face Turn throughout the years from Not in This for Your Revolution to a more “good” state of mind, and Word of God comments on the manner he chose to remain silent and allow himself to die in order to ensure Harry’s victory show he genuinely wants Voldemort stopped not for revenge itself, but atonement that initially began only with Lily’s death.
  • Dumbledore's brother Aberforth is this as well. He tells Harry point blank that he thinks it's a lost cause. He still shows up to fight in the end.
• Stephen Donaldson protagonists tend to be big fans of sour armor. The titular lead of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant novels turns this trope up to eleven, stubbornly persevering even though he knows everything he does will be turned into disaster by the Big Bad.
• Sparhawk of David Eddings' The Elenium is a world-weary, cynical knight, old before his time who will readily cooperate with and ally with career criminals against far more terrible evils and readily establish a reputation for savagery in combat to convince enemies not to fight. Nonetheless, he has an ironclad sense of personal honor and dignity, and his bark is generally far worse than his bite. Which is to say that, while he threatens to do a lot of horrible things, he only actually does some of them.
• Meyer Landsman of The Yiddish Policemen's Union is certainly one of these on top of being a Defective Detective — a cynical jackass, but feels personally compelled to close his investigation instead of letting it be shelved as a cold case for bureaucratic reasons.
• Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four. He joins the Brotherhood knowing full well that he won't see any change in his lifetime and that he will be killed for it eventually. Too bad the Brotherhood doesn't actually exist—it was set up by the government as a way to entrap Thought Criminals. Maybe.
• 1st Sgt. Welsh in The Thin Red Line, who lacks faith, ideals, patriotic fervor and any interest in either medals or career advancement, yet keeps on fighting due to a sense of duty (and because he's good at his job).
• Gawyn Trakand from The Wheel of Time series swears an oath as prince to protect his sister to the death and yet she not only makes his childhood a hell with her antics, she runs off in the middle of training in the White Tower two times leaving him behind. This comes to a head when Gawyn decides to support a coup against the Amyrlin and slays his own teachers from his frustration to help but later helps the Amyrlin escape. The guy just can't catch a break and it doesn't help later when in the middle of Dumai Wells his men are surrounded and getting killed. Cue Min dropping the bomb on him that his sister is in love with Rand and the emotional turmoil must be unbearable.
• In the play "The Dragon" by E. Schewartz we have Lancelot The Travelling Knight:
  Lancelot: I was injured lightly nineteen times, severely eleven times and deadly five times, but I'm so light a soul that I'm still alive.
• In Altered Carbon, Takeshi Kovacs seems to be an inversion of this; a life-long cynic, Kovacs has slowly but steadily gained an idealistic side, strongly influenced by the philosophy of his homeworld's revered revolutionary leader and Knight in Sour Armour Quellcrist Falconer. However, his particular status has left the cynicism deeply ingrained, with the result that he seems to strongly resent his idealistic side and reacts with a Snark Knight schtick that ranges from convincing to desperate.
• Typically in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, Luke Skywalker is quite idealistic. But in Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, the Big Bad makes him mentally experience an eternity after the heat death of the universe in an attempt to break him and get him ready for a Grand Theft Me. It doesn't entirely work, but when Luke gets out, he's made deeply cynical, believing that everyone's life is waste, saving someone wasn't really saving them because that would just prolong the brief interval. All striving leads to nothing, and everyone who talked about duty and honor and love was just using him. He doesn't want to believe it, but he does—and he makes the very conscious decision to act exactly as he did before, like when he trusted in these airy concepts and believed lives were worth saving, in the hope that he can fall back into the dream and become the mask. Later he sees a very Mind Screw-y vision that relieves some of that cynicism, though, so he's not a sour knight for very long.
• In The Screwtape Letters, Screwtape, a demon's mentor, warns him about these. "Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys." Ironically, he occasionally takes the tone of one himself, finding that his goal to corrupt humans is tedious whenever it fails but believing that it "must win in the end".
• In C. S. Lewis' The Silver Chair, part of The Chronicles of Narnia series, the "Marsh Wiggle" named Puddleglum is perpetually pessimistic and always believes the worst is about to happen, yet is staunchly and resolutely (and usefully) on the side of good throughout the story.
• Dedicate Rosethorn from the Circle of Magic series qualifies. She's very much a sarcastic and irritable Cynical Mentor to Briar, but she has given up a normal life in order to help the poor.
• Most of the protagonists in the Anthology Dark and Stormy Knights, edited by P. N. Elrod are this although there are also examples of Noble Demon, Action Survivor, and Punch-Clock Hero.
• Garrett from the Garrett, P.I. series describes himself like this.
• Haymitch from The Hunger Games. He just wants a world where no more children can be tortured from being forced to kill each other.
  • Katniss too, especially after she fully accepts her role as "the Mockingjay".
  • Johanna and Finnick also qualify.
• The Quest for Karla Trilogy: The main character, George Smiley, is an experienced but cynical spy. Despite the moral complications and issues of his work, Gordon always seeks to do the best job he can in his spying because he still believes it is the right thing to do. George is idealistic but also fully aware of the moral greyness of his environment.
• The Hallowed Hunt: Ingrey is actually rather youthful for a Bujold protagonist, but the tortures he endured—meant to help him control the wolf-spirit he harbors—made him "frighteningly self-controlled" not to mention dour and sarcastic. His love interest lampshades it:
  "Now what makes you grow grim?" Ijada demanded.
  "Nothing."
  Her lips twisted in exasperation. "To be sure."
• DC Grant in Rivers of London tries to be idealistic even though he knows it is all going to end in tears.
• Atticus Finch of To Kill a Mockingbird is utterly and correctly convinced that, because of Maycomb County's inherent racism, Tom Robinson cannot escape being convicted for a crime he didn't commit. Atticus still does everything in his power to get Tom acquitted, and treats it as the most important case of his entire career despite the reaction from the people of Maycomb County.
• Jayfeather from Warrior Cats doesn't believe in the way the Clans work, the ideals of StarClan, or the Warrior Code. Despite this, he vows to fight for the Clans until long after the day he dies, will never give up on saving anyone, and devotes his whole life to protect his Clan.
• Brian Duffy of Tim Powers' The Drawing of the Dark starts sour, and only becomes sourer as the story progresses, but never loses his desire to do the Right Thing, despite serious temptation.
• In Melisa Michaels' Skyrider series, Skyrider is cynical, taciturn, snarky, and anti-social, but when the chips are down, she knows she's the best, and often only, person for the job, and reluctantly picks up her metaphorical lance. Again.
• Patrick McLanahan from Dale Brown books. The world never gets permanently better, an awful lot of people are Ungrateful Bastards at best, hostile and traitorous at worst, and his friends and family keep dying violently, but he keeps fighting to make the world better nevertheless.
• Song at Dawn: Dragonetz came back from the Second Crusade as one of these; disillusioned of the Church and haunted by his deeds. If you ask him what he thinks about the knight's oath to 'protect the weak' he'll tell you it's a 'suicide oath'. However, he still possesses faith in God and the idealism that he can make the world a better place.
• Corwin in The Chronicles of Amber is, in many ways, an homage to Phillip Marlowe, so it's little surprise that he shares this trope. As more of a redeemed villain than a bitter hero, he's a rather dark example.
  I sometimes fancy myself an evil which exists to oppose other evils[...] on that day when the world is completely cleansed of evil, then I, too, will go down into darkness, swallowing curses[...] But whatever. Until that time, I shall not wash my hands nor let them hang useless.
• Jimmy Gage star reporter for SLAP! magazine and hero of Robert Ferrigno's Flinch and Scavenger Hunt who is pretty much the only serious reporter for a magazine that is halfway between Vanity Fair and a tabloid. His investigative reporting usually only ends in partial victories but he continues to fight the good fight. His cop girlfriend Jane Holt qualifies as well.
• Tsovinar of Glory in the Thunder literally sets her hopes and dreams on fire after accepting they can never come true, and wonders aloud why she even bothers intervening for the good of others, but she just keeps doing it.
• Nero Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin responds to most of the world's frustrations with a sarcastic, cynical quip, but as Wolfe perceptively notes deep down he's quite the knight-errant. For all his snark, it's not hard to provoke him into rushing out headlong in order to do someone a good deed — particularly if the someone needing the good deed doing is a pretty young lady.
  • Wolfe himself may be even more this trope. The Sour Armor is rusted on well and good, he's far less likely to go rushing out the door to find someone to save, freely admits that he could probably be bought off if the price was high enough, and professes to disdain any worthier or loftier sentiments than getting paid a very high price for his services... and yet, nevertheless, once set on the trail of someone who has committed murder, he never stops until the guilty are exposed and justice is done.
• Seth Hammerstaal, who's the male protagonist in Överenskommelser by Simona Ahrnstedt, is a very cynical man, who does many stupid things. But still, he never stops believing that you should always do the right thing.
• Blake Thorburn of Pact is a formerly homeless man who has seen much of the worst that humanity has to offer, from beatings to events so traumatic that he refuses to elaborate on them, and sees himself as a fundamentally broken person, but he expresses his faith in the inherent goodness of humanity nonetheless, as there exist many people whose good actions outweighed the bad and helped him when he needed help. He, therefore, strives to do the right thing, even though, as a hereditary diabolist, everyone expects him to fall to villainy and most supernatural creatures despise him.
• Scott of Hobgoblin can't stand most of his classmates, but when Fergus goes crazy and starts killing them, he steps up to fight because it's what a hero should do plus it's his chance to actually live out a mortal battle. Afterward, he still can't stand his classmates.
• The Stormlight Archive:
  • Highprince Dalinar Kholin. A great warrior and great leader of his people, he tries to live by an ancient code of conduct, which only makes other nobles mock him. And even though he could (and some say that he should) take the throne for himself, he is very protective of the current king, his nephew Elhokar - who constantly disappoints him.
  • Kaladin Stormblessed definitely qualifies. Not that you could blame him, given the life he's had. Sarcastic, cynical, and bitter at only twenty years old, but he still just can't bring himself to stop protecting people - most of his sourness comes from all the times he couldn't protect somebody. Lucky for him, on Roshar that fast-tracks you to become a Surgebinder. The following quote from Words of Radiance actually sums up his character quite nicely ^note Honor is the name of God on Roshar.:
    Kaladin: Honor is dead. But I'll see what I can do.
• Everyone in The Hearts We Sold. Every single member of the heartless troop has been through hell, and then some, but it falls to them to save the world, so they keep fighting — albeit, with some coercion from their boss.
• Although many of the older characters in Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers have elements of this, Athos is the primary example (and something of a Trope Codifier to many more recent writers).
• In Tom Kratman's Okuyyuki, the protagonist Reilly is cynical and even bitter at the corruption in the Army, but still determined that he, at least, should do his part as a soldier.
• Bird and Madrone in The Fifth Sacred Thing, who suffer under a fascist dystopia and countless horrors including rape, torture, child death, and PTSD. Bird actually breaks entirely for a while into an obedient servant of the regime, almost shooting his own grandmother to save her from having to live in such an evil world, and after witnessing the regime's many crimes Madrone begs the Goddess to cleanse the Earth of humanity. And yet, when the chips are down, they decide to fight for a better world anyway, and win.
• Alidore from Kane Series story "Cold Light", a young idealist who joins "The Crusader" Lord Gaethaa to fight evil but slowly begins to realise that his commander is a ruthless Knight Templar. It almost drives him to kill himself.
• The Malazan Book of the Fallen:
  • Ganoes Paran starts the books out as an idealistic newbie who dreams of becoming a hero through soldiering. These are shattered quite thoroughly quite quickly and his experiences make him much less willing to beat around the bush with niceties. He still believes that it's worth to prevent The End of the World as We Know It. He crosses half the world and loses family and friends to achieve that goal but never truly believes that saving the world will make it better, only, well, save it. At one point he wonders aloud when they will finally tell the gods to stop meddling in mortal affairs and High Mage Noto Boil questions whether the gods' absence will make things any better. Paran counters that no, of course not, but at least then humans won't have anyone to blame their own problems on.
  • Fiddler's a pessimist at heart which shows early on in the series already and gets progressively worse. Nonetheless he keeps doing what he does best — being a soldier — because the Empire's done some good things and he cares for the recruits he's responsible for, and later, because he knows that Adjunct Tavore's cause of saving the world is the right thing to do. He still gripes about almost everything.
• The Mental State features a deeply troubled character called Zack. His experiences cause him to develop a jaded view of the world and many of the people in it. However, this does not stop him from trying to reform them whenever he can, usually by resorting to extreme measures.
• Zig-zagged between Blood Knight and Anti-Villain by the two 'M' brothers in J. R. R. Tolkien 's The Silmarillion. Of the seven sons of Fëanor, Maedhros and Maglor are the most honourable, empathetic and sworn enemies of Evil, yet their oath drives them into indescribable atrocities.
• The Lost Fleet: Multiple Senators (particularly Senator Sakai) and fleet captains (particularly Captain Tulev) remain loyal and determined advocates of ending the war and preserving the lives of their allies even as they question whether there's any chance for them to succeed.
  Senator Sakai: Perhaps my efforts are doomed to failure, but that will not be because I ceased trying.
• City of Light: Ravidel Shand. He's grown highly disillusioned with his country, but loyally serves it nonetheless as he swore to and still believes it's right even so.
• Solomon Kane is a dour, gloomy Puritan swordsman whose only goal is vanquishing evil in all its forms. He always acts in a manner consistent with his ideals of justice and right.