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{{trope}}
[[File:
''The throes of a living hell''
When this trope is in play, war is a [[Crapsack World|hellish, traumatizing nightmare]], and anyone who comes out of it alive will end up a [[Shell
▲{{quote|''"Over the deep and the deadly sweep<br />
▲The fire and the bursting shell<br />
▲While the very air is a mad despair<br />
▲The throes of a living hell"''|'''[[Phil Ochs]]''', "The Men Behind The Guns"}}
▲When this trope is in play, war is a [[Crapsack World|hellish, traumatizing nightmare]], and anyone who comes out of it alive will end up a [[Shell Shocked Veteran]]. Those who take pleasure in it are [[Ax Crazy]] [[Blood Knight|Blood Knights]] or [[Psycho for Hire|wo]][[Complete Monster|rse]]. This trope gained its name by the famous quote from General William T. Sherman, "War is all Hell, and I have every intent of making it so." Most people quoting it [[Beam Me Up Scotty|shorten it to the trope name]].
The motives for war are depicted as being irrationally base; survival, dogma, fear, hatred, insanity, personal conquest, or even all of the above prevail. For the average man and woman, the force of [[General Ripper|wartime authority]] overrides any thought of their own.
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Sometimes, [[Hopeless War|the war is shown to be unwinnable]], despite all the sacrifices made. There is a correlation between being on the losing side of a war and making a work following this trope: compare treatments of [[World War II]] and [[Vietnam War]].
[[Truth in Television]], though fiction may exaggerate, and the degree to which this is true will vary from war to war, country to country, and even soldier to soldier. One thing sure, someone is going to [[Tear Jerker|cry]].
Historically, this trope might be [[Newer Than They Think]]. [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|There is a long tradition of]] [[War Is Glorious|glorifying war]]: [[Badass|bravery, discipline, manliness,]] [[Martyrdom Culture|martyrdom]] and the [[Values Dissonance|right of the]] [[Social Darwinist|strong to take from the weak]]. As photographs, film and other forms of mass media from the front became more and more common, this trope became more and more mainstream, eventually replacing that tradition.
The [[Ur Example|earliest recognized instance of widespread belief in this trope]] is probably the [[Thirty Years' War]], which dragged on forever, ruined Germany, and involved such frequent changes of alliances that nobody was really sure why anyone was fighting anybody. The mass armies and new military techniques also meant that it directly affected a large segment of the population. As a result, several artists of the period depicted war as a distinctly nasty experience, and popular accounts like sayings seem to confirm a rather gloomy attitude. However, after the Thirty Years' War ended, European militaries grew smaller and wars further from the people (until the [[Napoleonic Wars]], at least), and the trope receded.▼
The [[American Civil War]] prompted another early expression of the trope: Union General William Sherman is commonly credited with saying "[[Trope Namer|War is Hell]]." It was the first true industrial war and chewed through the American population and countryside. Furthermore, it was the first war that was extensively photographed and one public exhibit during that war, ''The Dead of Antietam'', made for such a powerful impression that one reviewer described it as much like distributing the war dead on the streets of the city.
▲The [[Ur Example|earliest recognized instance of widespread belief in this trope]] is probably the [[Thirty Years War]], which dragged on forever, ruined Germany, and involved such frequent changes of alliances that nobody was really sure why anyone was fighting anybody. The mass armies and new military techniques also meant that it directly affected a large segment of the population. As a result, several artists of the period depicted war as a distinctly nasty experience, and popular accounts like sayings seem to confirm a rather gloomy attitude. However, after the Thirty Years' War ended, European militaries grew smaller and wars further from the people (until the [[Napoleonic Wars]], at least), and the trope receded.
However, since the reasons for ''that'' war were obvious to everyone
▲The [[American Civil War]] prompted another early expression of the trope: Union General William Sherman is commonly credited with saying "[[Trope Namer|War is Hell]]." It was the first true industrial war and chewed through the American population and countryside. Furthermore, it was the first war that was extensively photographed and one public exhibit during that war, ''The Dead of Antietam'', made for such a powerful impression that one reviewer described it as much like distributing the war dead on the streets of the city.
There are several reasons for this. One is that we aren't born as [[Sociopathic Soldier|sociopathic soldiers]] and most modern societies frown on killing for any reason. Most military basic training spends [[Training
▲However, since the reasons for ''that'' war were obvious to everyone fighting--making the horrors of war just a bit more bearable--the trope only really caught on with [[World War I]], which was long, bloody, and seemingly pointless. Thanks to near-universal conscription in all the major countries of Europe, a large number of writers and poets of the early 20th century had experience on the front lines, and they did not like what they saw. The [[Adolf Hitler|identity of one recorded World War I soldier]] who ''did'' enjoy his wartime experience probably entrenched the trope in Western culture furthermore afterward, [[World War Two|especially when said soldier started the most devastating war in human history]].
Second, being in constant fear for your life and limb is obviously stressful. Especially in the era of modern combat, which is more dehumanizing than ancient combat. If you were a genuine badass who is strong and skilled with weapons, you felt like you were in control of your destiny. Furthermore, war often took the form of [[Rape, Pillage and Burn|raiding and rustling]] and might have actually been fun; exceptions include those who were [[Made a Slave|conquered]] and thus [[
▲There are several reasons for this. One is that we aren't born as [[Sociopathic Soldier|sociopathic soldiers]] and most modern societies frown on killing for any reason. Most military basic training spends [[Training From Hell|quite a bit of effort]] to instill into recruits that killing is acceptable. For a good look, ''[[Full Metal Jacket]]'' is a movie to watch. Still, overcoming a lifetime of moral imprinting is very difficult. Many past societies taught their [[Child Soldiers]] from birth that killing in war was their noble destiny, so they avoided this problem.
Third, the societies that promoted war were also [[Crapsack World
▲Second, being in constant fear for your life and limb is obviously stressful. Especially in the era of modern combat, which is more dehumanizing than ancient combat. If you were a genuine badass who is strong and skilled with weapons, you felt like you were in control of your destiny. Furthermore, war often took the form of [[Rape Pillage and Burn|raiding and rustling]] and might have actually been fun; exceptions include those who were [[Made a Slave|conquered]] and thus [[Writtenbythe Winners|couldn't write poems]]. Modern combat, with [[Weapon of Mass Destruction|artillery, IEDs, bombers, nukes and other horrors created by technological evolution,]] means that [[Death From Above|death can strike from above killing us all without knowledge, warning or defense]], instilling a mindset of paranoia, insignificance, helplessness and nihilistic despair similar to that portrayed by [[Lovecraftian Fiction]]. WWI machine guns and a slow blinding death (or [[And I Must Scream|worse]]) by chemical weapons meant that you could die without ever seeing the enemy, thus rendering your skill level practically moot.
And finally, we live in an era where even ordinary people can write poems. Past societies tended to disdain slaves along with "the common folk" and only recorded the way they lived in general terms. War has probably always been nasty for poor people: When armies are small and aristocratic, the noblemen trample all over your fields, ruining your crops; when they're large, you have to leave your farm or shop, potentially leaving your family without support, to pick up a spear and some pathetic armor and join the army, or perhaps get in the galleys and row, or [[Made a Slave]]...and still, armies trample all over your crops, except when they steal them. These opinions would not be found very often in pre-modern writings, [[
▲Third, the societies that promoted war were also [[Crapsack World|Crapsack Worlds]]; life was already a short and unpleasant hell. Illness such as bubonic plague could kill you slowly and painfully, food and water was rarely enough to feed everyone, and losing a limb meant losing that precious scrap of food on the table, since there was no such thing as veteran support. [[Karma Houdini|Karma Houdinis]] roamed the streets while [[No Good Deed Goes Unpunished]]. Again, past warring societies put further that the very least you can do is to fight and quickly die in an adrenaline rush [[Martyrdom Culture|knowing you did something meaningful]]. In [[Norse Mythology]], those who died in combat went to [[Warrior Heaven|Valhalla]].
This doesn't necessarily discredit war or render it obsolete. If anything, this trope has helped promote justifications of conflict along the lines of it being either a "[[Necessarily Evil]]" or an undesirable, last-ditch option when more peaceful means fail. In addition, [[Irony|paradoxically and in one of the most confounding ironies known to man]], it's been argued that war in some sense ''has'' been [http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-the-long-run-wars-make-us-safer-and-richer/2014/04/25/a4207660-c965-11e3-a75e-463587891b57_story.html good for something]: namely helping make larger, stable and more peaceful societies possible while reducing the risk of violence over time, and thus ''less'' war.
▲And finally, we live in an era where even ordinary people can write poems. Past societies tended to disdain slaves along with "the common folk" and only recorded the way they lived in general terms. War has probably always been nasty for poor people: When armies are small and aristocratic, the noblemen trample all over your fields, ruining your crops; when they're large, you have to leave your farm or shop, potentially leaving your family without support, to pick up a spear and some pathetic armor and join the army, or perhaps get in the galleys and row, or [[Made a Slave]]...and still, armies trample all over your crops, except when they steal them. These opinions would not be found very often in pre-modern writings, [[Writtenbythe Winners|because the people who held them neither knew how to write nor knew anyone who did and would care to listen]]; today, these stories get picked up fast.
May overlap with, but not to be confused with, [[Hell Is War]]. Contrast [[War Is Glorious]], which is not mutually exclusive with
{{examples|Examples:}}▼
== Anime and Manga ==
* In the manga ''[[Saga of Tanya the Evil]]'', war is sometimes portrayed as rather hellish. Like Visha's baptism, or the time a [[Mook Horror Show|mook recalled his run in with]] [[Sobriquet |The Devil]].
* Most of the ''[[Gundam]]'' saga, in particular ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in
** An even more recent example is ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED
** To quote Kamille Bidan (''[[Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam
** The One Year War. It's the most famous war in the Gundam franchise, with half a dozen or more side-stories elaborating on it. In fact, in the course of the war, the Zeons are willing to drop a giant space colony, housing 3 million civilians, down on earth, killing the civilians in the colony with gas beforehand, and destroying quite a big portion of Australia, create giant machines that can kill thousands of people in seconds, and blame it all on the Earth Federation. In fact, they start the war by dropping a colony on Sydney, leaving a crater that can be seen clearly when Kou comes to Sydney in 0083, four years after the war. It doesn't get much better that most main characters in 0079-series are mentally scarred, or break down.
** Even [[
* The Ishval Massacre in the ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' is basically wall to wall bodies, the Ishvalans are either being massacred or are killing the Amestrians in a last ditch effort to survive. By the end of the flashback pretty much everyone is left traumatized, and most of the rest are [[Ax Crazy]] to begin with.
* ''[[
** Of course, the original series and its sequels -''[[
**
{{quote|
'''Rubina''': "If this war continues, not only all Vegans but Earth will be destroyed." }}
** This is a running theme in [[Go Nagai]] mangas, particularly ''[[
* ''[[Naruto]]''. In fact, Madara said "For a child, war is hell". War was responsible for making Itachi who he is and also very much had something to do with Pain's motives. When the three Sannin met Nagato (Pain), Yahiko and Konan, [[Mad Scientist|Orochimaru]] suggested killing them because only more pain and hell would await them {{spoiler|and tragically that turns out to be the case}}.
** The Fourth Shinobi World War defines this trope when you hear the death toll of the Alliance forces for the ''first day''. {{spoiler|40,000 Ninja and samurai died in a ''single'' day of fighting.}} But due to [[A Million Is a Statistic]], most people don't care unless a named character dies.
* ''[[Zambot 3]]'' explored this trope. [[Child Soldiers]] forced to handle weapons and fight a faceless enemy? Check. People dying suffering and dying the whole time? Check. People turned into human bombs? Check. Cities being destroyed? Check. Both sides battling among the ruins of cities already destroyed in previous battles? Check. Every side thinking the other side are the evil ones? Check. It is no wonder this anime was done by [[Yoshiyuki Tomino|the creator of Gundam]] during one of his [[Kill
* And then Tomino took it up to eleven when he created [[Ideon]]. A war between two sides starts cause a misunderstanding. The result? Tons of deaths, destruction, suffering, mindscrew and {{spoiler|the destruction of the universe.}}
* ''[[Grave of the Fireflies]]''. Boy in his early teens and very young sister, left orphaned in Japan at the end of the Second World War. Things ''[[It Got Worse|do not go well]]''.
* ''[[Princess Mononoke]]'' could be described as a
* ''[[Saikano]]'' is incredibly [[Anvilicious]] about this. [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped|It]] [[Tropes Are Not Bad|works]]. [[Tear Jerker|Well]] for some.
* Some would say that ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' is all about saying
* In ''[[Nausicaa of the Valley of
* ''[[Vinland Saga]]'' delivers this message with surprising subtlety.
* ''[[Now and Then, Here
* ''Jinroh Wolf Brigade'' paints a rather vivid image of a post World War Two Japan where the Nazis were victorious, with rioting in the streets, child terrorists and the realpolitica power plays with the CAPO and Public Security backstabbing each other. Bonus points for the main character {{spoiler|shooting his girlfriend rebel before a sniper killed both of them}}.
* ''[[Voices of a Distant Star]]'' and ''[[The Place Promised in Our Early Days]]'', though they are less about the war and more about the people living in a war state. The former is about futuristic war, and the latter is about the [[Cold War]] [[It Got Worse|gone bad]].
* ''[[Future War
* ''[[Front Mission]]'' Manga "Dog Life and Dog Style" are very much in the
* ''[[So Ra No
* ''[[Barefoot Gen]]'', anyone? This one portrays the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath, as experienced by a six-year-old boy and his family.
* The core tenet of the Third Squad of Shinigami in ''[[Bleach]]'' is that battles are something to be dreaded. They are a horrible, terrifying experience that should not be glorified. This is key to ensure that those who participate become so fearful of battle that they would rather find peace than seek war.
* While the ''[[Monster Rancher (
* ''[[Legend of Galactic Heroes]]'' emphasised this trope in various ways, from the protagonist's anguishing over the deaths of countless soldiers under his command right down to particularly graphic scenes of destruction that both warring factions experience.
* This is the chief theme of the ''[[Area 88]]'' manga and OVA. More generally, the series is about protagonist Kazama Shin's journey through hell after his best friend tricks him into joining a mercenary air force.
** Shin tells the base's resident [[Arms Dealer]], McCoy, that he'll go to hell for selling weapons. McCoy replies that he's already there.
* Parodied in ''[[
==
* Often turns up in ''Rogue Trooper'' to offset [[War Is Glorious|the exciting adventures]]. Many a story ends something like this:
{{quote|
'''Rogue:''' Yeah, but you know what's harsher? War in general. }}
* ''[[Sgt
* Also a regular theme of [[DC Comics]]' ''[[Enemy Ace]]''.
* Prominently featured in the first issues of ''[[Nth Man:
* ''[[Sin City]]'': Invoked in
* In [[Alan Moore]]'s "[[DR and Quinch]] Get Drafted" for ''[[
* ''[[Amazons Attack]]'' tries this. Ends up being one huge [[Face Palm]].
* ''[[Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers]]'' runs on this trope, as a [[Deconstruction]] of a franchise that usually takes a [[Rule of Cool]] approach to its central [[Civil War]] theme.
== Fan Works ==
* ''[[
* ''[[
▲* ''[[Tiberium Wars (Fanfic)|Tiberium Wars]]'' is pretty much wall-to-wall examples of this, with graphic, savage, and brutal descriptions of soldiers being shot, stabbed, burned, and vaporized. And that's before we get to how completely nasty the battlefields are; one chapter has a group of Nod soldiers slogging through raw sewage, with one soldier getting it ''in a fresh bullet wound.'' In one of the latest chapters, we get to see the effects of a full armored assault with {{spoiler|Mammoth Tanks}} from the perspective of the receiving end. Its about as brutally terrifying as one can imagine. In Chapter Seventeen, a Nod officer {{spoiler|executes his own wounded}} to keep them from falling into enemy hands, because he believes they will be tortured and killed. Three weeks into the war, GDI has managed to fill ''a stadium'' with ''three hundred thousand body bags.''
* ''[[
▲* ''[[Dumbledores Army and The Year of Darkness (Fanfic)|Dumbledores Army and The Year of Darkness]]'' is another prime example, depicting the horrific ordeal the members of the eponymous insurgency go through to keep the darkness at bay as best they could, culminating in a final battle (the Battle of Hogwarts from [[Harry Potter (Franchise)/Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows|the book]], retold from their perspective) in which {{spoiler|[[Kill Em All|almost everyone dies.]]}}
* ''[[
▲* ''[[Warhammer 40000 Trouble (Fanfic)|Warhammer 40000 Trouble]]'' brought it to the [[Refuge in Audacity]] level with random nuclear strike killed people 8 times larger than the [[Alien Invasion]] themselves, only reason that keep [[La Résistance]] still able to fight is because of [[Power of Trust]], [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|the rest is insane]] or [[Dying Like Animals|die]]
{{quote|
▲* [[Poke Wars|The Poké Wars]] is also packed with examples of this trope. The effects of the supercharged Pokemon attacks are described in graphic detail, as well as the feelings of the victim if it's still alive after the hit. The characters' reactions to the more trauma-inducing happenings are just as vividly written.
▲{{quote| Skitty screamed both from the pain of the impact and the indescribable agony that arose from the corrupted blood that coursed through her veins, destroying everything they touched. She fought through the pain, struggling to get up before anything could take advantage of her vulnerable state. She tried to get up only to have her legs buckle. Her strength left her as the Ariados venom in her blood began to slowly digest her organs.<br />
She [Solidad] opened her eyes; the scene of her Lapras dying still replayed over and over again in her mind. No matter what she did, she could not erase the sight of Lapras's eyes bursting and her skin scorching as thousands of volts surged through her body, burning her alive. }}
* ''[[The TSAB
* ''[[
** There's also the fact that the shinigami aren't able/willing to do their jobs of keeping souls in balance and sending the dead from the human world to Soul Society. This means that the entire structure - Soul Society, the human world and the Hollow world of Hueco Mundo - is in danger of collapsing in the not-too distant future. So even if the war goes in favour of the increasingly damaged Resistance, it could yet be for nothing.
* The ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'
== Films ==
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*** And also keep in mind that was after the defense was fooled in moving more than half of their forces away. Imagine how a full frontal assault would have gone down!
* ''[[Black Hawk Down]]'': A war where the people you are nominally fighting for are also the enemy: the experience of fighting an unwinnable war. Also see [[War Is Glorious]], for the other side of the story.
* Interestingly, [[Troma]] got in on this trope with ''Combat Shock'', an ''extremely'' brutal and [[Tear Jerker|bleak]] depiction of the [[Vietnam War]] and one veteran's attempt to rebuild his life. {{spoiler|He ends up having a flashback and murdering his wife and young child. He snaps out of it, [[My God, What Have I Done?|realizes what he just did,]] and [[Driven to Suicide|kills himself.]]}}
* ''[[Das Boot]]'': Set in 1942, follows the story of a real life submarine and its crew. Few movies manage to convey a sense of terror, futility and frustration all at once and with such skill.
* ''[[The Thin Red Line]]'': American soldiers faced with the brutality of the World War II Japanese military struggling not to commit retaliatory war crimes. Lots of [[Gray and Gray Morality]], honest [[Tear Jerker]] moments and serious contemplation about whether war is an inevitable part of human civilization or not.
* Almost anything set in the [[Vietnam War]].
** ''[[Full Metal Jacket]]'': most famous for depiction of dehumanising military training.
** ''[[Platoon]]''. Set in Vietnam, this movie does not attempt balance: it is an all-out
** ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'' is well-noted for using
** ''[[The Deer Hunter]]''. Hellish experience while in Vietnam. Shell shock when returning. And then gets even worse for the attempted rescue of one who got left behind.
** ''[[Hamburger Hill]]''
* ''[[Lord of War]]'': Those who suffer in war are rarely those who benefit and conflict need not be just. The special horror of feeding murder and destruction for monetary gain.
* [[Master and Commander]]: Zig-zagged. The film doesn't glorify war; it glorifies heroism. There is little of the stereotypical cynicism of an "antiwar" movie because it is not-as such. Furthermore the special effects are grand and almost look like paintings at times. But real tragedy is shown. A boy has his arm blown off, people we like are killed, one man is driven to suicide, [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking| and sailor food looks just awful.]]
* ''Gallipoli'': exuberant and naive boys from outback Australia go to war. Their illusions are shattered in the botched assault landings at Gallipoli.
* ''[[Paths of Glory]]''. Set in [[World War
* The Russian film ''[[Come and See]]'' is about a little boy turned partisan during [[World War Two]]. It ends in insanity and shows incredible cruelty on both sides. The title itself is a reference to the biblical Apocalypse.
* Another good example: ''Purgatory'' (''Chistilishe'' in Russian). Is about first Chechen war. Takes violence to a whole new level.
* ''[[The Guns of Navarone]]''. Every win comes at a price. The line which separates right and wrong becomes very blurry in pursuit of victory. After the team escapes captivity, the Nazis torch the village of Mandrakos. Imagine what they will do to every village in Navarone now that the guns are destroyed. Finally, Butcher Brown suffers Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after his combat in the Spanish Civil War.
* Played word for word in ''[[Ace Ventura|Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls]]'', when the pet detective says the following words to the native Wachoochoo tribe:
{{quote|
** Which his partner, one of the native Wachatis, translates as [[Crowning Moment of Funny|"I want to fight you...so go to hell!"]]
* [[Zhang Yimou]]'s ''Red Sorghum'' shows the effect of the Second Sino-Japanese War <ref>part of [[World War II]]</ref> on one man's family; focusing on the narrator's grandmother's sorghum-liquor distillery.
* [[Zhang Yimou]]'s ''To Live'': the main characters, touring China with a traditional Chinese shadow-puppet troupe, are impressed into the Nationalist army during the Chinese Civil War. They fall asleep one night and wake up to find that a battle has taken place; the field is strewn with bodies, most of them Nationalist, and their friend's brother's body is found among the carnage. They surrender to the advancing Communists, who have ''them'' enlist when they find that their new captives can entertain them with shadow puppets.
* Hunter and Ramsey discuss the theories and philosophy of [
{{quote|
* ''Die Brücke''. During the final days of [[WW 2]], a number of freshly-drafted and (at first) still enthusiastic German kids fight and die one by one in order to hold an ultimately irrelevant bridge against the American advance.
* The pair of movies ''[[Flags of
* ''Cross Of Iron''; a squad of war weary German veterans are on the eastern front in 1945.
* ''[[Waltz
* ''[[The Hurt Locker]]'', about a bomb defusing squad during the current [[War On Terror]]. Besides the fact that the protagonist [[Colonel Kilgore|might like the tension a bit too much]], clearly shows how bad things are in Iraq.
* ''[[Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of
* ''[[All Quiet
* ''[[
* ''[[Jarhead]]'': Just sitting in a desert waiting for war to begin is already hell. The fact that it never does for some is absolutely soul crushing and leaves soldiers battling lingering feelings of despair, loneliness, and alienation instead of an enemy on the battlefield.
* ''[[
** Then the Battle of the Bulge began a couple of weeks later which overshadowed this conflict.
* ''[[The Good, the Bad
* The Polish film ''Ashes And Diamonds'': Alliances not built on trust will quickly crumble. Another war begins just as another ends.
* ''[[Zulu]]''. "Do you think I could stand this butcher's yard more than once?"
Line 148:
* ''How I Won the War'' seems very comical and satirical, but it has a particularly brutal underbelly. It's viewed and monologued by the [[Colonel Kilgore|Kilgore]], however, and manages to at first glance come off as [[War Is Glorious]], at least until you remember he got the rest of his men killed with poorly planned actions, and generally bad training. Mostly a shot at careerist military men who would do anything for a promotion or a medal, as well as being generally incompetent on all fronts, and how costly such a thing is to everyone but them. Without selling or stealing a single physical tangible thing it is still easy to classify Lieutenant Goodbody as a 'war profiteer,' as there is no doubt from the conversations he has with his German counterpart he will no doubt go on to write a best-seller about his 'heroism under fire' and being the sole survivor of his squad.
* ''[[The Patriot]]'': Benjamin Martin helps win the war but his home is destroyed, two of his sons are dead and the other two are forced to kill at a young age, irreversibly changing them both (one is scarred for life, the other likes it too much).
* In ''[[A Very Long Engagement]]'' a young, cheerful man is conscripted from his simple and happy country life to fight in [[World War
== Literature ==
* ''[[Belisarius Series]]'': The title character knows perfectly well that no matter how skillful a general he is and how well he fends off Malwa tyranny large numbers of his enemies are innocent conscripts who will die miserably far from home, and that wherever any army marches including his own it leaves famine behind it. That is not to mention atrocities which he has to resort to ruthless terror if he intends to prevent his men from indulging in.
* ''Goodbye To All That'': Extraordinary wartime physical hardship. Constant exposure to danger and death. An unbridgeable gap between the experience of those on the front line and those on the home front
* ''[[All Quiet
* Wilfred Owen's poems. The most famous example is probably ''Dulce et Decorum Est''.
* ''My Brother Sam is Dead'' by James Lincoln Collier revels in this. Perhaps it is to much for a Newberry, except for the fact that the people who read it are going to have the authority of citizenship (and thus of war and peace to some degree) in a few years. In any case, it gives the portrayal of [[The American Revolution]] as something involving putting family members on opposite sides. As well as showing a sordid mess of [[Feuding Families|feuds,]] [[Cycle of Revenge|cycles of revenge,]] and [[Kick the Dog|bullying of civilians]], by soldiers. The hero's brother, who is enrolled with the Continental Army is executed on false charges. [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Hence the books title.]] In general the book gives the impression that whether or not [[The American Revolution]] was a glorious cause or a gift of liberty or whatever, it was certainly a nasty war.
* ''[[The Forever War]]'': We're fighting them because they are fighting us because we are fighting them because ... a war without any sensible objective that no-one can stop. Soldiers that return home find it utterly alien: who are they fighting for?
* ''[[Slaughterhouse
* Post WWI, Septimus in Virginia Woolf's ''Mrs. Dalloway'' suffers from shellshock-induced hallucinations and might have full-blown schizophrenia. He also has survivor guilt over the fact he saw his friend Evans get blown up and believes Evans's ghost haunts him.
* ''Three Day Road'' by Joseph Boyden: Native Canadian snipers in World War I. A fairly innocent young man snaps completely under the impact of the war and commits war atrocities. Graphic and nihilistic.
* John Marsden's ''Tomorrow, When The War Began'' series featuring a group of teenagers who become guerrilla fighters when Australia is invaded by an unspecified foreign power.
* [[Madeleine L
* The ''[[Flashman]]'' series tends to lean this way, which is unsurprising given the setting. Flashy lives through some of the most terrible campaigns of his era including the retreat from Kabul and the Sepoy Mutiny, and in most cases he only survives because he is a lucky, cowardly, lucky, conniving, lucky, bastard.
* A brief, haunting moment in Lois Lowry's ''[[The Giver]]'' is when Jonas is given the memory of a young man dying in combat - and when we say young, we mean no older than [[Child Soldiers|thirteen]]. [[Utopia Justifies the Means]], indeed...
* K.J Parker's ''[[The Scavenger Trilogy|Scavenger Trilogy]]'' and his work explores war exhaustively in a [[Low Fantasy]] setting. It grubs up the base motives for war, the inglorious mess that a full-blown war becomes, the wreckage it makes of humans and human life.
* ''[[Gone
* Hemingway wrote often on this trope. ''A Farewell to Arms'' and ''For Whom The Bell Tolls'' brutally depict the horrors of war, the former set in the muddy trenches of WWI, and the latter depicting the unique barbarism that is found only in civil wars, in this case the Spanish Civil War.
* The [[Trope Codifier]] is ''[[The Red Badge of Courage]]''
* [[Harry Turtledove]]'s book ''A World of Difference'': after American and Soviet spacecraft land in opposite Minervan (Martian) nations and the Medieval Minervans later go to war. Each with a human advisor, the Soviet with an AK-74 and the American with a pistol. Then an American ultralight drops a jumbo-sized molotov cocktail on the Soviet causing the American-friendly King to shudder in terror at the thought of what human battlefields must be like with Noiseweapons everywhere and fire falling from the sky.
* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' doesn't go on and on about descriptions of wartime brutality (the gore, dismemberment, trauma, etc.) but at the end of the battle of Pelennor Fields, a battle everyone knew was morally okay to fight, there is a running list of good people who were cut down with little fanfare, and several who did get fanfare but were still dead and mourned. Further, there is Helms Deep, where Hama's body was "hewn even as he lay dead before the gates," and the fear for the lives of friends and loved ones when a small contingent was hemmed into the caverns by the Uruk-Hai the vast desolations of the landscape to fuel the war machines of Isengard and Mordor, and of course Samwise musing on the fact that most of the people killed in war, even on "the wrong side," probably aren't themselves evil at heart. Then after that, there is the scouring of the Shire, where Saruman, so twisted by the loss of the war, tries to simply maim as much as he can. There have even been essays written about the orcs and the Ringwraiths and how they relate to this. Tolkien was, of course, a veteran of [[World War
** Even when the Free People’s (Elves, dwarves, hobbits, ents and good men) have [[We ARE Struggling Together!]] and the Orks, nazgul, trolls and evil men have an [[Enemy Civil War]], both sides knew that [[Not So Different|any of their other band enemies will destroy them ruthlessly]], Orc Gorbag tell this to Shagrat in the second book and hobbits Frodo tells this to Sam in the third book (see [[Meaningful Echo]]).
* ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''. Every side has thousands of soldiers being maimed or massacred, and the soldiers that do survive in one piece spend most of the time when they're not actively fighting rampaging through the villages, stealing, murdering, and raping as they go. The nobility try to hold onto a [[War Is Glorious]] mindset at first, but lose it rapidly as they start to suffer consequences too, and it's gone entirely by the time the Tully family takes Jaime Lannister as a hostage.
* ''[[Catch-22]]''. War is inescapable and insane. You can be promoted without doing anything and you can be arrested for breaking curfew while letting a rapist go free because he is on furlough.
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[Romance of the Three Kingdoms]]'' while it had its epic war moments, was ultimately a tale of tragedy as three kingdoms vied for the control of China and ultimately none were victorious. In terms of the fates of the characters, Shu fell as [[Wide
* ''[[Johnny Got His Gun]]''. About a soldier who is [[And I Must Scream|left deaf, blind, mute and without any limbs]] as a result of a war that he didn't even volunteer for. He learns to communicate by moving ever so slightly, and repeatedly asks to be killed.
* Patrick Ness' ''[[Chaos Walking]]'' trilogy seems to be going this way,{{verify}} although the theme seems to be more 'war can be a necessary evil' than 'war is always bad'.
**
* ''[[Bolo]]'' - In the late days of Case/Operation Ragnarok, even the eponymous [[Knight in Shining Armor]] sapient supertanks are falling to bloodlust and slaughtering the enemy's civilians. When the sole survivor Shiva reawakens, he is horrified by the atrocities that he himself had not been above committing under the pretense of [[Punch Clock Villain|following orders]].
* This is brought up in ''[[The Book Thief]]'', as a young German girl and her adopted family living in Germany during [[World War 2]] and aren't living [[Perpetual Poverty|in the best conditions.]] What was particularly [[Tear Jerker|heartbreaking]] was when {{spoiler|the street they were living in was accidentally bombed and everyone except the little girl died.}} It's quite harsh when you realize that it was the Allies who did that.
* A subtle, but constant theme in the ''[[
{{quote|
* ''[[The Underland Chronicles]]'' and ''[[The Hunger Games]]'' series, both by Suzanne Collins.
* ''[[Fate
* [[Dale Brown]] tears strips out of [[Elites Are More Glamorous]] in his works. You may be a member of a top secret unit with the [[Bigger Stick]], but the numbers will always be on the enemy's side. Plan for every contingency, do your best, and at best the enemy will still get licks in. At worst, friends and trusted comrades will die. Succeed and no one will know your name; fail and at best you die, at worst you are disavowed, thrown to the wolves of public opinion as a sacrifice by uncaring superiors. War is never pretty even from behind a drone control station.
* The ''[[Horatio Hornblower]]'' books do not make any attempts to conceal the awfulness of British Navy life in the Napoleonic Wars. What with the gory descriptions of battle, hideous injury, worse medical care, brutal discipline, and foul food and water (this last is not [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|inconsequential]]), the eponymous lead at one point thinks that the prison volunteers on his crew would have done better to stay in jail.
**Descriptions by other historians suggest this may be downplayed. The real Royal Navy according to this was often better than the merchant service (whose owners don't have a tax base), or just living in poverty with no prospect of relief. Combat was rare and usually the enemy got so little time at sea that the odds of survival were pretty good. Abuse of sailors too, was not as common as in the past. [[Your Mileage May Vary]] on that one.
* The [[Vorkosigan Saga]] plays with this trope a lot. For a Military SF series, there's not a whole lot of actual warfare going on; instead there's tons of low-level skulduggery and spy versus spy shenanigans to ''prevent'' full-scale wars from breaking out. The very few times some real mayhem occurs, we always get to see the [[Tear Jerker|consequences]].
* This is one of the main themes in [[Andrey Livadny]]'s ''[[The History of the Galaxy]]'' books, especially the books that take place during the First Galactic War, a 30-year bloodbath started when the dictator-ruled [[The Empire|Earth Alliance]] destroys the Dabog colony as a lesson to the other Free Colonies, sparking [[The War Of Earthy Aggression]] that eventually resulted in the total defeat of Earth and the establishment of the [[The Federation|Confederacy of Suns]]. Since the novels are focused on characters, we get to experience the full extent of the horrors of war, especially, as the author calls it, the "technogenic" war, in which rapid technological progress has resulted in more ways to wipe out your fellow man than one can count. The full extent can be seen in novels featuring [[Humongous Mecha]] fights (of the [[Real Robot Genre|Real Robot]] kind). The novel ''Serv-batallion'' as it shows a group of teens from Earth being conscripted to fight a war they don't support and, essentially, sacrified by their commanding officer in order to get a Colonial [[Wave Motion Gun]]. Other novels involve war vets trying to adjust to living in a post-war galaxy.
* Almost any ''[[
* Similarly and even more the case for being unfortunately [[Truth In Television]], ''[[The Winds of War and War and Remembrance]]'' does indeed regard war as horrific, but not without [[Screw the War, We're Partying|some]] [[Band of Brothers|compensations.]] By contrast the totally non-military behavior of Nazis who wear [[Bling of War]] but [[Miles Gloriosus|do nothing more belligerent]] than bully slaves around is far worse. Danger and hardship are shown from war. Concentration camps emphasize humiliation and helplessness as well. There is no question that the author thinks tyranny pushed to an extreme degree is even worse than war.
* ''[[Band of Brothers (TV series)|Band of Brothers]]'': you will cry the day you lose your friends. This one is contrasted with its main theme of [[True Companions|a circle of unbreakable friendships]].
▲== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[The Pacific]]'',<ref>[[Spiritual Successor]] to ''[[Band of Brothers (TV series)|Band of Brothers]]''
{{quote|
* Murdock gives a nice little "war is hell" speech in ''[[
▲{{quote| "The worst thing about treating those combat boys from [[World War One|The Great War]] wasn't that they had their flesh torn; it was that they had their souls torn out. I don't want to look into your eyes someday...and see no spark, no love, no...no life. That would break my heart."}}
▲* Murdock gives a nice little "war is hell" speech in ''[[The A-Team (TV)|The A-Team]]'' episode ''The Island''.
▲{{quote| "War is hell, Wally Gator, isn't it? We know about hell and we know about war, right?"}}
** It should be noted, he was talking to ''a baby crocodile.'' And he ''still'' managed to make it sound deep. [[Dwight Schultz]] is just ''that'' awesome!
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''The Last Great Time War'' is said to be this in ''[[
* ''[[Deep Space Nine]]'', as the only ''[[Star Trek]]'' series which showed a long time war (the Dominion War) the show often ventured into this with episodes like Nor the Battle to the Strong and the Siege of AR558
* ''[[Star Trek:
* The ''[[Star Trek:
* ''[[The Terminator]]'' franchise always describes the fight against the machines as a war but it was ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'' which really hammered this point home. Derek, Sarah, John, and even [[Emotionless Girl|Cameron]] were starting to crack by season 2.
* For all its campiness, ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'' never shied away from showing the terrible effect of war. Many times Xena would avert a war caused by someone's greed. Notable episodes with this theme were:
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** "A Good Day" - the horror of being stuck in the middle of two warring armies.
** "To Helicon and back" - gunpowder is used for the first time in battle and the result is horrifying.
== Music ==
* Edwin Starr's song "War" cuts straight to the chase.
{{quote|
* [[Eric Bogle]]'s song "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda". As the old man sits on his porch, watching the veterans march past every ANZAC Day, he muses:
{{quote|
** Also his song, ''No Man's Land''.
{{quote|
''The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
''To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
''And a whole generation who were butchered and damned'' }}
* "Mama", from [[My Chemical Romance]]'s ''[[The Black Parade]]''.
{{quote|
''You would cry out your eyes all night long...'' }}
* "Godspeed" by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
* "Hero of War" by [[Rise Against]]
** Just [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJfAV3mJrGY listen to it]
* "Eve of Destruction" written by P. F. Sloan and most famously performed by Barry McGuire.
{{quote|
''There'll be no one to save, with the world in a grave."'' }}
* "The Patriot Game",
{{quote|
''I think of those traitors who bargained in souls
''And I wish that my rifle had given the same
''To those quislings who sold out the patriot game"'' }}
* "One" by [[
* [[
{{quote|
** Given their
* [[
* [[
* [[
* L'Arc-en-Ciel's "Hoshizora" is about both the aftermath of either the Tokyo firebombings or Hiroshima and dedicated to the children of Iraq.
{{quote|
''a town that fears the darkness goes to sleep
''A small happiness above the rubble, I was born here,
''I who watches the stars. nobody knows. nobody cares.
''I have lost everything to bombs.'' }}
* ''Some Mother's Son'' by [[The Kinks]]
* ''Hell is a War'', by [[Annihilator]]:
{{quote|
''Doesn't it make you wonder why?
''Money and power, the television's red
''One by one, they collect the dead
''Hell is a war - hell, what is it for? }}
* [[Muse (
* The discography of [[Galneryus]] up until 2009 is pretty equally split between this trope and [[War Is Glorious]]. Some of the best for this trope would be "Blame Yourself" and "Stardust."
* ''I Was Only Nineteen (A Walk in the Light Green)'' by Redgum, which details the various horrors faced by the ANZAC troops in Vietnam.
{{quote|
* The [[Kaizers Orchestra]] song "170", about a volunteer soldier (given the number "170" and never referred to by name) who leaves behind his pregnant wife to fight in a war. The song ends as his CO sends him over the top first to check if all is clear, and no response comes. The song "Død manns tango" (Dead Man's Tango) involves a veteran who's been forgotten by the world and paralysed from the waist down: It's possible it's the same person.
* [[
* [[Sabaton]] singing almost entirely about war, uses this trope from time to time. Some notable examples:
** "Cliffs of Gallipoli"
{{quote|
''how many dreams did fade away
''broken promises they won't be coming home
''Oh mothers wipe your tears
''your sons will rest a million years
''found their peace at last as foe turned to friend
''and forgive"'' }}
** "Angels Calling":
{{quote|
''Charge their lines, the ultimate test it's a synchronized sacrifice
''Get the wounded after dark
''Left alone in no man's land
''Maddening chaos at the front
''Dream of heaven. Angels are calling your name"'' }}
** "A Light In The Black":
{{quote|
''Was this really meant to be?
''See the shore of our home fade away
''Facing blood, facing pain
''Have our brothers died in vain?
''Many lives has been lost on the way"'' }}
** ''The Price of a Mile'' (over on the [[War Is Hell/Quotes|quotes page]]), about the bitter stupid bloody battles of [[WW 1]].
* Benjamin Britten's ''War Requiem'' sets nine poems by Wilfred Owen to music and surrounds them with [[Ominous Latin Chanting]]. The standard text of "Agnus Dei" in the Requiem mass replaces the line "Dona nobis pacem" (Grant us peace) with "Dona eis requiem sempiternam" (Grant them everlasting rest); the "Agnus Dei" in the ''War Requiem'' uses both.
* "Army Dreamers" by [[Kate Bush]].
* "This Is Why We Fight" by [[The Decemberists]]:
{{quote|
''Come the war, come hell
''Come attrition, come the reek of bones
''Come attrition, come hell"'' }}
* "Masters of War," made famous by Resistance 3.
* [[Billy Joel]]'s "Goodbye Saigon", about the Vietnam war, is well known for its realism and the many [[Tear Jerker|hearts it broke.]] To give an example, ''these'' are the opening lines.
{{quote|
''We left as inmates from an asylum
''And we were sharp, as sharp as knives
''And we were so gung-
* This is a common theme used in the [[Gorillaz]] anti-violence ballads, but "Dirty Harry" (namely the rap solo) is an especially good sample:
{{quote|
''From the things that I've seen
''Your water's from a bottle / Mine's from a canteen
''At night I hear the shots ring, so I'm a light sleeper
''The cost of life, it seems to get cheaper..."''
* [[Smile Empty Soul]] has a few of these such as "This Is War" and "God's Army" where they make their opinion on the subject extremely clear. }}
* Toxic Holocaust use the exact phrase in
* "Still Spinning Shrapnel" by [[
* God Dethroned released a concept album based on the battle of Paschendale. They did not skimp on the details.
* Thrash Metal band Warbringer seems to invoke this trope more often than not, especially the song 'Forgotten Dead', below. YMMV, as they tend to toe the line between condemning and glorifying war with their explicit, visceral lyrics.
{{quote|
''Caught in the blast as the mines detonate lifeless bodies hang from barbed wire
''Stabbed through the gut by a bayonet, blood chokes your scream
''Another dying sould is laid upon the altar ofmankind's greed"'' }}
* [[
* "Born in the U.S.A." by [[Bruce Springsteen]] is a lament about the Vietnam War's devastating effects on American troops and the treatment of Vietnam veterans upon their return home:
{{quote|''"I got in a little hometown jam
''And so they put a rifle in my hands
''To go and kill the yellow man...
''I had a buddy at Khe Sahn
''Fighting off the Viet Cong
''They’re still there, he’s all gone
''He had a little girl in Saigon"''}}
== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Warhammer
* Personified by Szuriel, Horseman of War, in ''[[Pathfinder]]''. Gorum represents the [[War Is Glorious|glory of war]], Torag [[The Strategist|strategy]], Iomedae [[The Paladin|just causes]], and Moloch [[Lawful Evil|discipline]]. Szuriel, on the other hand, is war at its worst. Essentially a [[Psycho for Hire]] with divine powers, she represents genocide, societal collapse, and war crimes on a grand scale, using war to traumatise mortals, harvest souls, and [[Omnicidal Maniac|hasten the apocalypse]].
* The beginning of the [[Traveller]] volume ''Sword Worlds'' shows a weary Sword Worlder soldier coming home from campaign to find his wife desperately trying to put together their ruined estate. The family orchard is blown to bits and it is all they can do to get the water running.
== Video Games ==
* ''[[
** We also see Shepard, who had kept his/her emotions almost completely subdued for the first two games, begin to get ground down by the effects of the war, the weight of having an entire galaxy on his/her shoulders and the horrible toll inflicted upon him/her by having to make absolutely impossible decisions that will always result in death no matter what. His/her crew is also suffering with families missing or dead and people seeing entire homeworlds destroyed.
** From the very beginning, as the Reapers are laying waste to Earth cities, you rescue a young boy and put him on an evacuation shuttle, only to watch as a Reaper calmly blows it out of the sky. For the rest of the game, Shepard is haunted by nightmares of the boy being consumes by fire.
* The ''[[Metal Gear]]'' series is about many things, but its most fundamental theme is that there's nothing glorious about war, and everyone involved suffers a lot, one way or another. Noteworthy for doing so by playing its tropes so straight they end up deconstructing themselves once they get to where they're going; [[Child Soldiers]], for example.
** ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' condemns nuclear proliferation.
** ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'' rejects the glorification of soldiers like the previous Metal Gear's protagonist by having some [[New Meat]] go through similar trials and come out emotionally scarred.
** ''[[Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater]]'' is an unflinching look at war and what it does to its soldiers. {{spoiler|The Big Boss is forced to assassinate The Boss, the greatest hero of World War II and the single most important person in his life, all because factions of the Philosophers are fighting over ''money''.}} The core message is that there is no such thing as an enemy in absolute terms, and that our allies today might be our enemies tomorrow. This is because our enemies are human beings, just like us. The game hammers that point home with the subtlety of an anvil, but it's a [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped|very effective]] [[Tear Jerker|message.]]
* ''[[Fallout]]'' has a famous quote that starts "War... war never changes." that paints war as an indelible curse of mankind. See the [[War Is Hell/Quotes|quotes page]] for the full version.
* ''[[Call of Duty]]'' lately has been sporting a coat of anti-war paint with some of its [[Have a Nice Death|quotes]]. Ever knew how much a Tomahawk missile cost? War ain't cheap.
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* We get a second coat of ''Call of Duty'' anti-warpaint in the ''[[Modern Warfare]]'' series. Fancy dying in the Middle East from a nuclear explosion? How about you and your unit being killed so close to completing your objective? Or infiltrating a terrorist cell for the CIA where you have to gun down people at airports, before being killed as a spy? Or the world entering a third world war and you being branded a traitor for killing the people responsible?
* ''[[Yggdra Union]]''. Any war game that pits you against an enemy army of [[Hero Antagonist|genuinely good people]] and points this out to you ''repeatedly'' is gonna hurt.
* Even ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' uses this trope, especially in ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius
* ''[[
* ''[[Skyrim]]'' has this in spades. One NPC mentions that there are no innocents, only the guilty and the dead.
* The ''[[Gears of War]]'' [[Expanded Universe]] had local big dude Tai, upon finding his village razed to the ground, remarking that, "Some people have said 'War is Hell.' War is not Hell, for in Hell, innocence is spared."
* Of all works, ''[[Army Men
* The soldier sim series ''[[Operation Flashpoint]]'' pits you in the role of a [[The Everyman|completely ordinary]], [[Redshirt Army|completely vulnerable]] and [[We Have Reserves|completely replaceable]] [[New Meat|young soldier]]... who's fighting in a small scale conflict [[It Got Worse|that could easily spark]] [[World War Three]]... No [[Anvilicious|heavy-handed]] condemnation of war or [[Contemplate Our Navels|sombre thoughts of your squadmates]] are ever heard, but the depiction of modern warfare in the game (subtle, yet straightforward) [[Show, Don't Tell|says more than a million words]] : It's [[Paranoia Fuel|nerve-wrecking]], [[Everything Trying to Kill You|unpredictable]], [[
* ''[[Lost Odyssey]]'', when a [[Complete Immortality|completely immortal]] guy has lived for 1000 years just to see mortal people killing each other in war, you can really feel how much it makes him want to be freed from it. {{spoiler|Yet he can't.}}
* The ''[[Brothers in Arms]]'' series started with a fairly strong anti-war message and has been gaining in intensity since then. Hell's Highway is particularly noteworthy for not only killing off or maiming established characters, but for depicting [[There Are No Therapists|PTSD]] (sometimes in shit-your-pants-frightening ways.)
{{quote|
* ''[[Halo]]'' - While they were serious from the start, it wasn't until the third game it became clear that this is the main [[Aesop]]. Yes lovable main characters were killed in the first game, and the second game became more uglier about the situation, but that was out-shadowed by [[Do Not Do This Cool Thing|awesome playstyle, story, weapons and a badass player character]]. But by the time of third game, all of that were thrown right out of the window. ''Halo3'' was not afraid to show how shitty a [[Melee a Trois|three-sided war between Humanity, a galactic empire made of genocidal, fanatical aliens and a parasitic species of undead monsters]] [[Deconstruction|would be]]; [[Anyone Can Die|Anyone can (and will) die]], even main characters as {{spoiler|Sgt. Johnson, Miranda Keyes, 343 Guilty Spark, Prophet of Truth, etc}}, cities are burned to the ground, billions are killed, even the most [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain|Ineffectual Sympathetic]] [[Mooks]] become [[Took a Level
** And that goes without mentioning Halo Reach, all the other main games had the knowledge of the Halo rings as hope, or at the very least a game changer, not the same old stalling against an unstoppable more technologically advanced horde of intergalactic aliens who deem your entire people heretical. Halo Reach is that, each subsequent mission just makes it more and more clear that despite Reach being the most advanced colony and the one with the greatest military presence it will still repeat the same fate of its bretheren, and all you are doing is trying to save the most people you can/and or kill the most Covenant. The last two missions you do in a way find out about the rings, and you give it your all and sacrifice almost of Noble Team (meaningful name) to take it on the last transport leaving Reach. Yay you did it, all those missions, all those kills, all the obstacles passed by a hairline, now you get your long deserved reward right? Except somebody needs to fire the gun. You are left on Reach, with scattered unorganized resistance as its being glassed. And no matter how hard you fight, you will die. Halo Reach is game that shows that even if you give your all and be a good soldier hope is not guarranteed... Well for you :)
* While it never outright says it, [[Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45]] never flinches from the fact that combat was often short, terrifying and brutal.
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'': The Bolvar/Wrathgate cutscene, where a standard piece of [[Heroic Fantasy]] fighting is [[Mood Dissonance|unexpectedly interrupted]] by a poison gas attack and followed up in game with all of its horrific consequences.
* ''[[
** Its opening cinematic features the graphic death of Izana Kunagiri and his war chocobo from injuries as Ace, Queen and Jack stand helplessly (and all Ace can do is [[Manly Tears|weep for him]]). There isn't much that could make war seem less glorious than showing [[The Hero|Machina's]] older brother reduced to the level of complete freakout from his pain and fear of dying.
** Then it goes downhill from there... on all four sides of the war. {{spoiler|In Rubrum thousands died, and the ending hints that the entire nation was left ravaged (and recovery had to take at least fifty years with Machina and Rem's guidance). On Milites thousands of soldiers and mechs were ''reduced to mere Phantoma'' by [[Summon Magic|Alexander]], the summoning of which [[Cast
* War is always the main theme of the [[Suikoden]] series. Many characters get involved in different wars, and more often than not they end up traumatized in a way or another.
** [[Suikoden II]] has a character named [[Broken Bird|Pilika]], a sweet and joyful little girl, who, in rapid succession, lost her hometown, her whole family, and nearly her own life at the hands of Luca Blight, an [[Ax Crazy]] prince who [[For the Evulz|enjoys butchering men and women like pigs]]. All Riou and Jowy could do was nuisance him a bit, get swept away with his sword, and watch helplessly as he was about to kill her, while Jowy could do nothing but yell helplessly at him to stop. They were saved at the last second by an explosion caused by your allies, and escaped during the confusion. However, this last event finally break the mind of Pilika, making her [[Cute Mute|mute]] for nearly the entire game.
** [[The Strategist|Leon Silverberg]] is a great tactician, [[Well
* ''[[Home Front]]'' portrays war as savage, brutal, and inhumane affair where good people die for no reason, as well as driving home just how easy and potentially horrific friendly fire incidents can be in one of its more intense and memorable sequences. It also makes the point that, as horrible as war is, sometimes there really ''isn't'' a better option.
* Literally in the simulation game ''[[
* In ''[[Knights of the Old Republic|Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II]], it is shown that the war in the previous game has had absolutely devastating consequences for the Republic. Most of the playable characters, including the protagonist, are [[Shell
* ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'' features a chapter set in a [[Creepy Cathedral
== Web Comics ==
*
* ''[[Angels 2200]]'' has its entire plot built around this, with [[Face Heel Turn|very]] [[Break the Cutie|dire]] [[Anyone Can Die|consequences]].
* ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' has a speech [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0417.html here] about this given to Haley regarding Xykon's imminent attack on Azure City.
* ''[[Subnormality]]'' has a few, but this one is [http://www.viruscomix.com/page541.html particularly poignant.]
== Web Original ==
* Works by Stuart Slade, such as ''[[The Big One]]'' and ''[[The Salvation War]]'', make a point of portraying exactly how horrible modern military weapons technology can be, mostly as a reaction to how underestimated or cavalierly such weapons often get treated in much fiction. It helps that the author is a professional military analyst, and he [[Shown Their Work|shows his work]] by refusing to shy away from excruciatingly detailing exactly what modern
* In the sequel to ''The Salvation War'', ''Pantheocide'', we get "treated" to {{spoiler|the angelic army being hit with a nuclear initiation. The description of the results is chilling.}}
== Western Animation ==
* Universal Cartoon Studios productions
** ''[[
*** Probably the best episode for this is one where a kilrathi pilot crashlands on a paradise planet and holds the female doctor there hostage. She seems to have been taken over with Stockholm syndrome when Blair and Maniac find her, and eventually after stopping them from fighting one another she convinces them to let the Kilrathi leave, after having him promise not to reveal the beautiful planet's location so it may survive the war unscathed. Blair and Maniac agree to let him go, and he flies off...then they find notes implying that when she was treating his wounds she was also experimenting on him, and has bioengineered him without his knowledge into being a walking viral factory, who will die upon returning to Kilrah and spread the disease throughout their homeworld, wiping out the entire Kilrathi race. Blair and [[Even Evil Has Standards|even Maniac]] call her out on this insane plan, then take off to shoot him down. They both feel pretty crappy about it afterwards.
** ''[[Exo Squad]]'' also wasn't shy at all, depicting people dying on all sides, civilians being starved, [[Offstage Villainy|indications of genocide]], [[Body Horror]], and many examples of [[Nightmare Fuel]], particularly later in the show.
* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' explores the prolonged effects of Imperialism, foreign occupation, and even genocide as much as it can while still being viewable for children. One episode has the commander of an Earth Kingdom fortress show our heroes an infirmary, and then mentions that those soldiers are the lucky ones, because they came ''back''. Everybody has their lives affected by the war: the main character is the last of his kind because every single one of his people were massacred a hundred years earlier, and two of his companions lost their mother to a raid. They also meet many people whose villages were burned to the ground, with most of them losing their families in the process. One even blows up a dam to try and clear out Fire Nation soldiers, knowing that the flood will kill innocent civilians as well. They even meet a woman who was taken from her village simply because she was a waterbender, who then spent years learning how to manipulate the blood in people's bodies and now [[He Who Fights Monsters|blindly seeks revenge]]
** And this is before we get to ''The Tale of Iroh'' in the "Tales of Ba Singh Se" episode, which shows the quiet but powerful sadness of a father losing his son to the war. [[Anvils That Needed to Be Dropped|It hammers home the message of the inevitable personal consequences of war, and why it should not be entered into lightly.]] If there's a way to show this trope responsibly in a kid's show, ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' is probably the best example that you could possibly find.
* ''[[Peace
* ''[[Star Wars:
* Recent Transformers series' such as [[Transformers Animated|Animated]], [[Transformers Prime|Prime]] and The live-action films portray the Autobot-Decepticon war as this.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:
[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]
[[Category:World War
[[Category:Stock Aesops]]
[[Category:
|