Menacing Stroll

The Menacing Stroll is the lithe, athletic walk of the perennial Badass. Not quite a strut, it is a subtle, confident gait that lets everyone know that the walker could kick the collective ass of everyone in the room without breaking a sweat, because they are just that awesome. The Menacing Stroll was first observed in the Castlevania games (dubbed the Pimp Walk by fans), but it can also be found in assassins, thieves, and the leaner species of badass. It's all in the shoulders.

Compare Unflinching Walk, Power Walk.

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Examples of Menacing Stroll include:

Anime and Manga

• Major Motoko Kusanagi. It helps that she can walk through walls and anyone stupid enough to stand in her path.

Comics

• Catwoman, in her various incarnations.

Film

• Captain Barbossa. Captain Jack Sparrow, not so much.
• The various models of Terminator can pull this off even when buck naked.
  • Robert Patrick was cast as the T-1000 for his ability to do this at a very brisk pace.
• Aragorn.
• Used Narmfully in the already So Bad It's Good Silent Night Deadly Night 2
• Michael Myers of the Halloween series' highest level of speed, at least when the camera isn't on him. Even when his victims are running away from him, Michael manages to keep up with them with nothing more than a Menacing Stroll.
  • Deconstructed by Behind the Mask, where Leslie reveals that he runs full-tilt when the victim isn't looking and switches to a power walk when they are. He does a lot of cardio to make the illusion work.
• Ivan Vanko in Iron Man 2 has a moment like this in the beginning, moseying on over to Tony Stark in his Whiplash rig while racecars crash and explode behind him.

Literature

• Wheel of Time calls this "Cat Crossing The Courtyard"
• In the Matador Series, Dirisha's lover Geneva comments that Dirisha, although beautiful and sexy, has a swagger to her walk that makes men feel inadequate about their manliness. Someone else notes that their friend Sleel also has a walk that announces, "Hey, I'm the best there is."

Live Action Television

• Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer... and Buffy developed one too, for that matter.
• Sylar's done it once or twice on Heroes.

Video Games

• Simon Belmont and his kin from Castlevania.
• Altair in Assassin's Creed. It's genetic - Ezio and Desmond walk the same way.
• Jotaro in The Game of the Anime JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
• The Menacing Stroll is almost always part of the repertoire of an SNK Boss.
• Dante from Devil May Cry.
• Commander Shepard in Mass Effect. Particularly notable when s/he walks into the Shadow Broker's lair despite knowing that he is "very large" and that anyone who has gone in there has never come back out. And then s/he points a gun at the Broker's head from 10 feet away.
• Arcueid in Melty Blood, in both vanilla and Super-Powered Evil Side modes.
  • Also, Nanaya.