List of fictional badgers

This is a list of fictional badgers. Badgers are short-legged omnivores in the weasel family, Mustelidae. The personality and behavior of the real badger has greatly informed the development of personality and characteristics of the badger character in fiction. Specifically, authors of fictional works employing badgers have often emphasized their natural reclusive privacy and their ferocity and courage when protecting themselves (this aspect drawing its origins from the early tradition of badger-baiting).[1]

The badger's role as a character in fiction can be traced back to the folklore of Europe and Asia where their nocturnal habits have given them an air of mystery. In Chinese and Japanese folklore, the badger character is a shapeshifter.[2] In European folklore the badger character is intimately associated with the bear and is considered a forecaster of the arrival of spring. Older versions of these stories ascribed similar powers to the bear, but as bear populations dwindled, the folklore shifted to use the badger (in Germany and England), and the groundhog (in the United States).[2] In England, the badger character has been adopted in many quarters as a mascot—an evolution from the historic practice of using the badger in heraldic design.[3]

Anthropomorphic badgers have frequently appeared in children's literature, although their personalities have never settled in one particular manner. Characters like Beatrix Potter's Tommy Brock represent the negative side of badgers and reflect the farmer's view of the real badger as a predator of small livestock.[4] On the other hand, characters like Kenneth Grahame's gruff and ascetic Mr. Badger[4] or Susan Varley's Badger (Badger's Parting Gifts)[4] represent the positive side of badgers and reflect the real badgers' purposeful privacy in a way that allows authors to project human characteristics on them. Rural Economy and Land Use Programme fellow, Dr. Angela Cassidy, has noted that the literary figure of the "good badger" has become dominant since the early 20th century, but that more recently the figure of the "bad badger" (now a verminous character usually defined by stench and disease) has made a slight resurgence.[5] Children's book critic, Amanda Craig, has also noted a modern trend away from any instances of the badger character in literature and has identified the lessening of interaction between humans and badgers in modern times as the underlying cause.[4]

In more recent years fictional badger characters have become increasingly abstract, with thoroughly human characteristics and only the appearance of the badger. Indeed, Dr. Cassidy has noted that since 1990, the tendency with badger characters has "accelerated into surrealism and comedy" with the most prominent example being the "Badger Badger Badger" meme arising online in 2003.[6] Modern badger characters have shown up in numerous visual media including animation, commercials, live-action film, the internet, and in video games.[6]