Things like Batman getting trained by a master in a wooden palace on top of a mountain, man. Mr. Miyagi training while getting his cars waxed. Ender's Game before the twist. I'm such a sucker for that sort of thing. I think it's the combination self-improvement and guilt-free success while still unrivaled by the main antagonist. It's unfortunate that leading a balanced life is so difficult, especially when the opportunity skews against the proles. Because your job is... your job..
Yessss, to all those. And another: I got really into the Halo universe backstory, based on the video games, in middle school. There were a few books and collections of stories, some of which became plot lines for future games in the series. A massive part of most of those books were -- wait for it -- the Spartan school. Where Master Chief and the other Spartan super soldiers were trained. It's totally a cribbing of Ender's Game, but I couldn't get enough of it.
I played CE religiously, we had X-Box LAN parties, and we got this 3rd party client to emulate a LAN over the internet, "xbox connect", it was called. My friends were kind of into the back story, but I just liked the game. I have serious issues with willing suspension of disbelief though. I cannot seem to find a method for wedding physics and fitness. Ohhh, a tactical game of "jogging trajectories to simulate the gas-liquid phase transition for a monatomic species"? Or maybe the classic "lecture whilst jogging, whilst pretending jogging is the speed of light"? I really miss having time to work out. Major atrophy, but hey, it's the worst year of my life! Guaranteed. But getting these classes I'm taking out of my way makes it all worthwhile.