Assimilation Academy: Difference between revisions
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As many people who didn't enjoy schooling may tell you, formal schooling crushes gentle spirits, destroys creativity and enforces conformity above all. This is often reflected in fictional accounts of schooling. [[Tall Poppy Syndrome]] is often used here.
An '''Assimilation Academy''' will often feature school uniforms, a good shorthand for students' lost individuality. Expect it to be run by a controlling [[Dean Bitterman]] along with a [[Sadist Teacher]] or two. It will be ruled by an iron fist, and any student who dares question authority will be punished harshly.
Related to [[Sucky School]] and [[School Is for Losers]].
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== [[Fan Works]] ==
* One of author [[Jared Ornstead]]'s [[Author Tract]]s in his ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' fic
== [[Film]] ==
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* The first part of ''[[Ferdydurke]]'' is set in such a school. During the Polish lesson, the teacher recites nothing but a string of bland praise about the poet Słowacki, finally concluding that everyone love Słowacki and his works since he was a great poet. When one of the students complains that he doesn't actually like Słowacki at all, the teacher panics.
{{quote|''"He was a great poet, don’t forget that he was a great poet. Why do we feel love, admiration, delight? Because he was a great poet, a great poet. You ignorant dunderheads, get this firmly fixed in your heads and repeat after me: Jonas Slowacki was a great poet, a great poet, we love Jonas Slowacki and his poems delight us because he was a great poet – and because his verses are of an immortal beauty which arouses our deepest admiration."''}}
* [[C. S. Lewis]] felt that all schools were this way (considering his personal experience, that's hardly unreasonable), and it's reflected in his writing. In ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]'', school is only referred to obliquely and used to punctuate how dreary the normal world is. Every school is pretty much portrayed as where childhood goes to die...in the rain.
* Actually exaggerated in the ''Give Yourself [[Goosebumps]]'' book "Zombie School", in which the title school goes out of its way to brainwash its students into total mindless obedience, through everything from subliminal messages to strapping the little suckers to a mindwipe chair and pulling the big red lever. {{spoiler|Incidentally, if you ever read the book, you may want to have some change in your pocket. Just in case.}}
* Hogwarts becomes this twice in the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' series. It's not particularly successful in book five under [[Tyrant Takes the Helm|Umbridge's regime]], but that's certainly the Ministry of Magic's intent. Several students get tortured for either claiming Voldemort has returned (which he had) or by pulling pranks on Umbridge. Things go right again by the end of that book, but in book seven Harry, Ron, and Hermione come to Hogwarts to find out that Hogwarts has turned into an Assimilation Academy even worse than the one Umbridge tried to set up. Students there are actually taught the Dark Arts, encouraged (or coerced) into torturing younger students (and tortured if they refuse), and are fed anti-Muggle propaganda. Played up in the movie where students are even made to march in step.
* The academy where "flingers" (teleporters) are trained in ''[[The Journeys of McGill Feighan]]'' series by Kevin O'Donnell Jr. is ''literally'' this, using mind control devices to limit how creative flingers are and to limit their ability to think out-of-the-box. (The title character escapes this thanks to a roommate who hacks the device in their dorm room.) They do this because when flingers teleport anything, they need to add or subtract kinetic energy as required to make the payload's momentum match where it's going to; a sufficiently imaginative flinger (such as the title character) might realize that he doesn't have make it all zero out and that his power is in fact also a devastating weapon.
* [[Robert Sheckley]]'s ''The Status Civilization'': The protagonist found these were in use {{Spoiler|on Earth, and he'd been to one.}}
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
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