Not quite sure what to do with this, but a historian has made a really strong case for a trope he's calling
The Fremen Mirage which, despite being a relatively complex trope, seems to have over two thousand years of examples of the genre. I guess, let me put a first draft down here.
Laconic: “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And weak men create hard times.”
"The basic outline of this pop theory of history: that a lack of wealth and sophistication leads to moral purity, which in turn leads to military prowess, which consequently produces a cycle of history wherein rich and decadent societies are forever being overthrown by poor, but hardy ‘Fremen’ who then become rich and decadent in their turn."
There are six parts to the idea of the Fremen, taken from Dune as a pure example of the trope:
1. They are unsophisticated and poor, and do not value material wealth
2. They are morally pure, in such a way that their manly virtue makes martial prowesss
3. They are ruthless and clever
4. They are superior fighters due to living in harsh conditions
5. There is a basis for the difference. Classical basis: environment; modern basis: genetics and ethnic purity
6. They are a contrast to the softer, decadent, effeminate societies around them.
Note that history has never actually supported this as a valid argument, despite the fact it keeps recurring. State power has almost always rebuffed warlike tribes from any real gains of the richer territories controlled by states. However, because horse nomads often came from crappier places, they were beyond the state's reach, and thus got an large number of at-bats, and succeeded occasionally.
The only truly successful warlike tribe to beat back several states were the Mongols -- but they didn't succeed because of their virtue. It was because their survival skill of horse archery happened to be a highly effective military strategy, providing a highly mobile army that didn't need long supply lines -- just pasture. Thus the mirage -- despite millennia of people advocating this trope as reality, it never seems to have existed in real life. Though the tropes appear in histories, they are de facto fictions, with facts assumed to make the author's point about culture.
Highly related to [[Barbarian Tribe]] and [[Proud Warrior Race Guy]]. Might actually be the same trope as [[Noble Savage]], but might not.
Examples:
* Tacitus just making shit up about people in Germania as a way of lamenting how kids these days were making Rome weak -- at what was essentially the golden age of the Roman Empire.
* Julius Caesar on his reports of his enemies in Gaul played up how fearsome the next enemy was, based on their unique barbarian culture. Right before he went and creamed them with a larger army, thus proving how awesome he was. The power levels of the next Gauls just kept increasing.
* Later people reading Tacitus, and crediting his martial strength to the blood purity of the German people (after centuries of conquests and intermarriage), and thus adding to the strength of the modern German state. See also [[Those Wacky Nazis]].
* [[Dune]], of course, with its Fremen who take on decadent space empires.