Quinn: You took my kid, so yeah.
Paternal instinct can transform a Bumbling Dad into an Action Dad. If someone threatens his kids they will soon wish they'd never come within a mile of them. This is because fathers are expected to take care of their family and this naturally extends to keeping them safe. Such occasions serve as a way for a father to prove his worthiness—see A Real Man Is a Killer. Expect his children to have a newfound respect for their father and for them to brag that My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad. If their relationship was previously strained expect it to improve.
Often Papa Wolf incidents serve as a way to reveal that a Non-Action Guy is really a Retired Badass or a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass (or even a Retired Monster). In contrast to a Boyfriend-Blocking Dad (who sometimes thinks he's this; there is no overlap between them), a Papa Wolf is always portrayed heroically because the latter is defending their kids from genuine threats instead of imagined ones.
A Team Dad may display a streak of this, but the Papa is more likely to be related to his children by blood or through formal adoption, and the children tend to be younger, which may be part of why the Papa Wolf is more oriented toward protecting them rather than training them to defend themselves. However even completely grown children can summon this response in the face of crisis because they are still his children no matter how old or strong they get.
This is the Spear Counterpart to Mama Bear. When Mama Bear and Papa Wolf team up, no force on earth can stop them.
Subtrope of Beware the Nice Ones. See also A Father to His Men and Family Man. Combining this with Disproportionate Retribution can lead to a Knight Templar Parent. If the guy is a teacher instead, he's a Badass Teacher. If the guy doing this is a sibling/cousin, you get Big Brother Instinct. Inversely, see Parents in Distress for the kids rescuing the dad. Evil characters can use this too; after all, Even Evil Has Loved Ones. A subtrope of the Papa Wolf is the Badass and Child Duo, where an adult male badass takes it upon himself to protect an orphaned, unrelated young child. See also Cub Cues Protective Parent for examples from the animal kingdom, which might include a literal wolf.
Remember when adding examples that this is Always Male. The female equivalent is Mama Bear, so all Distaff Counterparts should be placed there. When Mama Bear and Papa Wolf team up, it's a Battle Couple and all pairs should be placed there. Parents in Distress is the inversion, when Papa needs to be bailed out by the kids, and Extremely Protective Child is when the child exhibits this kind of general protectiveness over one or both of their parents.
Also, note that this is not the trope for being protective of one's friends, unless of course it is something like an Intergenerational Friendship. In that case, it is okay. Otherwise, don't do it. Tropes about helping friends should go to A Friend in Need, The Power of Friendship etc.
Examples subpages:
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- Fan Works
- Films – Animation
- Films – Live-Action
- Literature
- Live-Action TV
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- Myths & Religion
- Pro Wrestling
- Tabletop Games
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- Web Comics
- Web Original
- Western Animation
- Real Life
Other examples:
- In the Got Milk? commercial seen here
, Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson lets nothing - not a cat up a tree, a bank robbery, or even an Alien Invasion - keep him from getting milk for his kids.
- In Happy Heroes, despite knowing that the Supermen can protect themselves, Doctor H., their nonbiological father, can still act overprotective of them from time to time. For instance, in the Season 1 finale, he jumps between them and a giant robot... while injured.
- You don't want to mess with Dick Tracy's kids. You really don't.
- Popeye is fiercely protective of his adopted son, Swee'pea, but having been raised, by Popeye, Swee'pea can easily hold his own in a fight despite only being an infant.
- Occurs in WHO dunnit (1995) with Butler, who is secretly Victoria's father Walter. When he overhears her husband threaten her (because he caught her plotting to kill him), he sabotages the brakes of the car and causes him to die in an auto accident.
- In Love Never Dies, after Christine sings the title song, she discovers her son Gustave is missing. Needless to say, his father is livid. He is ready to use every bit of his influence to stop Raoul de Chagny from leaving Coney Island, and to manhandle and/or murder the Girys to get back his son.
- In Macbeth, Macduff’s response to having his family slaughtered is (after weeping his eyes out) to murder the bitch that ordered the killings.
- Deconstructed in Matilda, as the Escapologist is so enraged at the Acrobat's sister's abuse of his daughter that once he discovers it, he goes to confront her himself. Unfortunately she is a former world-class Olympic champion and is heavily implied to have murdered him, leaving Jenny with nobody to protect her from her aunt's wrath.
- After Romeo fatally stabs Tybalt in "Romeo and Juliet", Lord Montague defends his doing so because Tybalt had killed Mercutio.
- In Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Judge Turpin's mistreatment of Johanna is half of Sweeney's motivation to go on a murdering rampage (the other half being, of course, what the bastard did to his wife Lucy after transporting him for life).
- In The Tempest, Prospero could be considered one in his fierce protectiveness of Miranda.
- Captain Walker in the 1993 musical of Tommy. And he's not very happy when he discovers his wife and son with her new jerkass lover on her 21st birthday!
- In Rigoletto, after the title character's daughter Gilda is kidnapped by the courters and handed over to the lecherous Duke, Rigoletto threatens to kill them all with his bare hands unless they give her back to him. After Gilda emerges from the Duke's bedroom without her virginity, Rigoletto secretly arranges to have the Duke murdered by the hit man Sparafucile. Tragically, it backfires, as Gilda loves the Duke and performs a Heroic Sacrifice to save him.
- Pop from Happy Tree Friends is usually really bad at being a father despite his good intentions, and actually gets his son killed more often than not. However, the few times he actually notices Cub is in danger, he will stop at nothing to save him, like when he successfully fends off a rabid dog in "Doggone It".
- In If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device, the Emperor is very happy with the news that he has biological children. When he finds out what happened to them, though, Warp storms abound over perpetrators' heads.
- Homestar Runner: Strong Mad gets like this when his best friend (nephew? pet?), The Cheat, is physically abused.
- Revenge Films: Claire was being assaulted by her stepfather, the bus driver. Her mother Penny called her biological father Jake, who rushed to the scene and oversped to the point where he was stopped by the police. When Jake told the police officer about the situation, they both went to stop the stepfather from assaulting Claire. Jake gave the bus driver a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, to the point where the police officer had to restrain him.
- RWBY: Qrow is Yang's maternal uncle but he loves Yang's half-sister Ruby just as much as Yang. Nothing stands between him and his nieces: he rescues Yang and Ruby from a hoard of Grimm when they were young children and he spends Volume 4 secretly following Ruby's group through the wilds of Anima, killing any Grimm that get too close. He only reveals his presence when Ruby's group find themselves fighting the vastly superior Tyrian, charging in to protect Ruby from being seriously injured. When the fourteen-year old Oscar locates Qrow in Volume 5 to reveal he's Ozpin's new reincarnation, it means that Ozpin's vast abilities are limited by Oscar's young, untrained body. When Hazel tries to kill Oscar for being the new host of the man he blames for his sister's death, Qrow's Undying Loyalty to Ozpin combines with his instinct for protecting children; he throws himself in harm's way over and over again to prevent Oscar's death, only stopping once he's too badly injured to fight any more.
- Wash in Red vs. Blue becomes fiercely protective of the Reds and Blues. He pulls a gun on Carolina when the latter threatened to shoot Tucker. He went out of his way to rescue Donut from an attacking Tex robot, perhaps as a way to make up for shooting Donut earlier. He performed a Heroic Sacrifice, ordering Freckles to collapse a cave to give Tucker, Caboose, Simmons and Grif enough time to escape despite knowing he will be trapped on the other side with the attacking Feds. He stepped in front of Sarge, Donut and Lopez when Locus appeared, readying his gun.
- Dreamscape: Liz is fiercely protective of Dylan, and will dish out a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to anyone who harms him.
- Camp Camp: David may be a nice and friendly guy, but threatening any of his charges is a bad idea. When Daniel pulled a knife on Max, he immediately tackled the guy to the ground.
- Helluva Boss: Under no circumstances should you even think about hurting Prince Stolas' daughter Octavia. Or else.
