Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: Difference between revisions

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* This is a staple of the era, so much so that the titular short story of [[H. G. Wells]]' first collection, ''The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents'', mocks the idea of an anarchist committing bioterrorism. <ref><big>A Bacteriologist, after a bit of prompting, shows a young man a vial containing a live culture of cholera, then leaves the room momentarily to answer the door, his return quickly followed by the visitor apologizing for wasting so much of the Bacteriologist's valuable time and leaving. The Bacteriologist then notices that there's something missing. One [[Standard Snippet|Yackety Sax]]-worthy taxi chase (one taxi for the anarchist, one for the Bacteriologist, and one for his wife with his hat, shoes, and overcoat) later, the vial breaks in the anarchist's hand and the anarchist decides to act as the first carrier and drinks what's left, at which point he feels free to exit the cab, yell "Vive l'Anarchie! You are too late, my friend. I have drunk it. The cholera is abroad," and walk off into a crowd. On the ride home, the Bacteriologist reveals that he had just told the anarchist that the vial had contained cholera to impress him, while it actually contained a bacterium [[Cool and Unusual Punishment|that turns animals blue]].</big> </ref>

* Whenever anti-globalization activists or environmentalists (of any stripe) show up on ''[[Law & Order|Law and Order]]'' or other [[Police Procedural|Police Procedurals]], they are invariably this. If the producers [[Straw Man Has a Point|wish to explore]] [[Strawman Political|their motivations]], they will turn out to be [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Well Intentioned Extremists]] who believe [[Utopia Justifies the Means]], but undergo a [[Villainous Breakdown]] or [[Epiphany Therapy]] [[Exasperated Perp|in response to]] a [[Kirk Summation]].

* Music example: Punk rockers often invoked this trope, posing as [[Bomb-Throwing Anarchists]]. The [[Ur Example]] may be the band [[Sex Pistols]], whose famous song "Anarchy in the UK" goes as follows:

* [[Seventh Sea]] has an entire Secret Society of [[Bomb Throwing Anarchist|Bomb Throwing Anarchists]] with its own splatbook. While the Rilisciare's reasons for being anti-authoritarian (nobles in the setting have access to sorcery that is {{spoiler|causing the barrier between the physical world and Hell to slowly weaken, and non-powered nobles have a history of betraying the Free Thinkers}}) are clearly stated, the society's history includes the point where they extended their enmity to include ''anyone'' with power, even mundane political power. Plus, all the good explosives abilities and equipment are in their splatbook (including the "Arson" and "Bomb-making" skills and a coat with ''hidden explosives in the buttons'').

** At the time, "mad bombers" were all assumed to be anarchists, and vice versa, based on the notoriety of the assassination attempts, hence the origin of the stereotype. Ironically, in reality, most anarchists at the time were basically [[wikipedia:council communism|council communists]] -- the people who wanted Russia to be run democratically from the ground up by workers councils. They all got killed by Lenin. So basically, anarchism at the time was another name for communism ''without'' the dictatorship part, not nihilism. (In the US, they briefly took over East Saint Louis during a General Strike and turned local governance, mail, etc. over to the Unions until the Federal soldiers seized control of the city). The same thing happened with the Seattle General Strike in 1919.

** Somewhat more plausibly in the 14-16th century, when some of the [[Torches and Pitchforks|peasant revolts]] during the Reformation ''were'' anarchist. The leader of the Anabaptists was drawn and quartered for proclaiming that he would rather the Turks invade Germany ([[Values Dissonance|a realistic proposition at the time]]) instead of having self-proclaimed Christians [[Technical Pacifist|rule by force]]. In England in the 1300s, [[wikipedia:Occams Razor|William of Ockham]]'s seminary students were Socialists of sorts who tried to eliminate all rulers in England and set up... they weren't sure yet. Their Peasant's Revolt [[What Could Have Been|nearly deposed the monarchy]] [[Alternate History|in the 1300s]], but was turned back at the gates of London. The leaders then met with the king to discuss reforms. He promptly killed them all, promised reforms to their followers (that never happened) and pardoned them, staving off any further revolt. The Diggers in the English Civil War were also essentially Christian anarchists and [[Actual Pacifist|Actual Pacifists]], meaning they didn't last long when the government cracked down. This was also when the word "anarchist" was used the first time in the modern sense, referring to such radical groups.