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Concepts Are Cheap: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|♫Justice is what he claims to fight for, but it's a mystery - what does this 'justice' mean? He hasn't got a clue!♫
|'''Space Hunt Drake Redcrest's Theme (Vocal Version, English)''', ''[[Chibi-Robo!]]''}}
Can't think of a convincing personal motivation for your hero, no problem. There are lots of useful words out there. Useful words like [[Meaningless Meaningful Words|'freedom' or 'justice' or 'peace' or 'mankind']]! Or 'love'! Or 'hope'! Or '[[Omniscient Morality License|good]]'! Yeah!
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"Freedom" stirs up lots of warm fuzzy feelings in people. Better yet, any villains who oppose our freedom-loving hero must be, by definition, evil. Better than ''that'', freedom is an abstract. If nothing specific is added, a reader can fill in the blank with ''whatever they want''.
And would anyone but a [[Card-Carrying Villain]] ''say'' that tyranny is better than freedom?<ref>[[Rhetorical Question Blunder|If "freedom" means "freedom to starve" and "tyranny" guarantees food is provided, plenty of people would.]]</ref>
[[Values Dissonance]] can hit with some of these concepts. [[For Science!]] was a cheap concept in [[The Fifties]] (positive or negative, depending on [[Mad Scientist|the sanity of the scientist]]).
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Unrelated to [[High Concept]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 00]]'' skillfully uses this trope as a plot point. It turns out that the point of Celestial Being sending hundreds of people home in bodybags in the name of "peace" was to {{spoiler|create a peace by making themselves the entire world's common enemy.}}
* One problem with ''[[Gundam Seed Destiny]]''. On one hand, one ([[Decoy Protagonist|possible]]) protagonist has the Destiny Gundam. And his opponents are piloting machines with the names Freedom and Justice.
* For somebody who claims to fight for "Love and Justice", Sailor Moon gets awfully jealous, with no real evidence, of any girl her boyfriend spends any time with during ''[[Sailor Moon]] R''.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
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** Originally Superman fought for truth and justice and was in a constant battle against evil. The Truth, Justice and the American Way part came in in the 40s for the radio program and it was more of an anti Nazi thing than an anti commie thing. Though it definitely became anti communist.
** Even his powers and costume were different during the early years from the his established identity. That doesn't make it any more sensible to deviate radically from what the character has been for most of seven decades.
* [[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]] fights crime for the grand glorious cause of Responsibility: he has the power to do it, so he has to do it. (It ''does'' spin out of his [[Origin Story]], but still.) This may mean that he was doomed to become a superhero no matter what: he was introduced as a young genius almost on par with the other super scientists of the time like [[Butt Monkey|Hank Pym]], [[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Reed Richards]] and [[Iron Man|Tony Stark]]. Thus, he had great power, and thus, great responsibility.
** Not too long ago (right after the above happened) during a team up, Stark calls out Peter for [[Reed Richards Is Useless|wasting his genius]]. Peter retorts that he can't exploit it because then his villains will be able to come after his loved ones. He's saying this while standing in the ruins of Stark's company which was destroyed by a super-villain to get back at Stark, which Stark chose to allow in order to save his employees. So you can see Peter's point.
* Inverted by the morally gray characters of [[Alan Moore]]. V (''[[V for Vendetta]]'') not only fights for "freedom", but puts into practice. In ''[[Watchmen]]'', Rorschach and Ozymandias, in very different ways and results, devote their entire lives to their ideals, at the cost of distancing themselves from the morality (and, in Rorschach's case, hygiene standards) of everyday folk. Ozymandias firmly believes that [[Utopia Justifies the Means]] and that a few million deaths to prevent the ''rest'' of the global population from dying is an acceptable sacrifice, while Rorschach believes that ''not even Utopia'' justifies the means, and that global extinction under the truth is better than peace through a lie.
* Periodically, [[Captain America (comics)|Captain America]] will become disillusioned when he realizes that even he doesn't really know what representing "America" really means. [[
* The ''[[Justice League]]'' villain Prometheus was designed as a sort of reverse Batman, whose parents were Bonnie and Clyde-like criminals gunned down by the police before his eyes. Why did he take on the Justice League? Because his parents death instilled in him a deep and abiding ''hatred of justice.'' It's entirely possible it was meant to be as trite as it sounds, but most writers (and readers) don't treat it that way.
** Spinning off from Prometheus comes the mini-series "[[Cry for Justice]]" where, suddenly, every single major character becomes this. They spend the entire series demanding "justice" without ever bothering to define what it means or how it's different from what the other heroes are already doing. Their actions are also closer to that of [[Revenge|another concept]] altogether.
== [[Film]] ==
* The ''[[Star Wars]]'' prequels abused this a lot, which might be
** It's even worse when you consider the [[Narm]] line from ''Episode III'' during the Anakin/Obi-Wan: "Anakin, the Chancellor is evil!" "From my point of view the Jedi are evil!" which is just randomly throwing moral relativism in there for some extra drama, not because it actually fit (since there wasn't an indication Anakin actually thought that before, aside from being ticked at how the council treated him).
* ''[[Evita]]'' had a bit of this. Late in the film, when Eva {{spoiler|is dying}}, her and her fascist dictator husband Juan start talking about how their "dream" may never come to pass. It's never really revealed what this dream was supposed to be, unless it turns out it was "Enjoy and abuse the Presidential office"(in which case, Mission Accomplished).
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== [[Literature]] ==
* ''[[Discworld]]'':
*
** Also see ''[[
* ''[[Don Quixote]]'' is a deconstruction of this trope: In the first part of the novel, he wants to be an [[Knight Errant]] [[For Great Justice]]. In reality, he is [[The Hedonist]] and all his efforts are really guided to live his dreams, but he doesn't accept it because he is an [[Hypocrite]] . In the second part of the novel, his motivation changes [[For Happiness]]. But this time Don Quixote is an honest man that must admit at the end of the novel that [[Shaggy Dog Story|his efforts didn’t help anyone]] and her [[Chivalric Romance]] [[Fan Disillusionment|dreams were shallow]].
* [[Discussed Trope|Discussed]] in [[Isaac Asimov]]'s ''[[The Caves of Steel]]''. Robophobic detective Elijah Bailey scoffs at the notion that law-enforcement robot R. Daneel Olivaw has a "justice circuit," saying that justice is too abstract a concept to be programmed into a robot. When asked to define justice, Daneel says "That which exists when all laws are enforced." While that would not be any human's concept of justice, it is perfectly adequate for a law-enforcement robot to function.
== [[Live
* In the
* Mohinder's voice-overs at the beginning of each episode of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' can be summed up thusly: "Destiny, blah, blah, fate, blah, blah, life and all its mysteries, blah."
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* In ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' priests have different levels of restrictions, ending in this.
*# "Common" clerics: they are [[Jack of All Trades|versatile]], usually serve a deity and associated church in many roles, which includes supporting allies of that deity - and have those allied powers grant them something in return. They aren't required to jump through too many hoops, but it would not do to offend any of those allies, or give mortals a bad impression, so clerics [[Slave to PR|have to be careful]].
*# What AD&D2 calls "specialty priests": serving one specific deity and doing work thereof. They don't care quite that much about public relations in general, but are watched more closely by their patron. Though for them it's less about limitations and more about dedication.
*# Pantheon or polygot (in [[Spelljammer]] terms) priests. They mostly act outside the main areas of influence and preach for the whole team - praising one can implicitly glorify or at least popularize his [[Worthy Opponent]], let alone allies. If you tell myths e.g. about Odin, you got to mention Loki, and vice versa. Naturally, most pantheons are varied enough to have relatively few "absolute" restrictions; the main problem is being disliked by mainstream priests for refusal to take sides. They are mostly active outside the centers of worship.
*# Priests who devote themselves to ideals - some broad concepts rather than a deity. There are even priests dedicated to ''atheism''! This allows to act pretty much however one wants as long it can be said to not violate the concept rather than worry about how his or her patron deity feels. The main drawbacks usually are having little or no followers or hierarchy backing them, no one to "watch over" them, and rituals that rely on contact with one's deity or servants thereof are either unavailable, tricky or risky (one may apply to "whoever this may concern", but who or what will answer this time?). For planewalking priests, there's also lack of power keys - if some magic doesn't work on this plane, tough luck, ideas don't package bits of their power and hand over to their champions. Granted, they also don't hand out missions on inimical planes in the first place.
** Of course, views of some deities can be just as broad as those of a patronless cleric. The extreme case are Elemental Lords, unconcerned with mortal affairs in general - for example, Kossuth simply doesn't care whether a priest praises him as the god of hearth or as the god of fiery destruction. Implications of this were explored, too - becoming their worshipers is an attractive option for those detached from people (sometimes to the point of "crazy hermit" type or more overt insanity) or those who are impressed with raw power and don't get along with restrictions of available gods proper - ''any'' of them.
*** In Al-Qadim, the "cold gods of elements" are generally disliked ("Aye, they are powerful. But not even genies of their elements worship them."), on to of not being participants of the "Enlightened" compact. A few followers crop up here and there, but those usually are either elementalists (already considered dangerously obsessive) or mad visionaries and/or adherents of [[Human Sacrifice|practices generally held objectionable]] - which doesn't improve the reputation of Elemental Lords' worship.
*** In [[Forgotten Realms]] mainland elemental faiths are generally accepted, but "go by the wayside", with a few exceptions.
**** Kossuth became quite popular in Thay after his servants helped to kick out the salamanders Red Wizards summoned and cheated. Priests of Kossuth are the only ones beside Red Wizards allowed to [[Color-Coded Patrician|wear red]] in Thay (though they are distinct, due to their holy symbols and robes being all colors of fire). In this case, neutrality is an asset, since it's one of the least malicious and most widely accepted powers of those venerated in Thay: one needs sivine magic now and then, but Red Wizards are already disliked enough, giving extra cause for organized opposition would be very counterproductive for their business. Traveling with a priest of e.g. [[Evil Overlord|Bane]] is asking for troubles in most places, but if local clergy sees a priest of Kossuth, they'll usually shrug or wince at most, or even say "oh, at least ''these'' aren't as bad as [[Flat Earth Atheist|Netherese]] were".
== [[Video Games]] ==
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** Eventually subverted by a bunch of different characters, albeit mostly in the supplemental material. They also [[Lampshade]] this mercilessly.
* Parodied in ''[[Grand Theft Auto III]]'' on the [[GTA Radio|Chatterbox radio station]]. A guy by the name of "Jeff" calls in, advertising a rally at Liberty City Park. However, when the show's host asks what the rally's actually about, Jeff responds with an escalation of otherwise meaningless phrases and appeals, including "for justice" "for the future", and "for hope". The host continues asking, only to be met with more cheap concepts and pleas for attendance, until it turns out the guy doesn't know what it's about.
* Played with in ''[[Wild
** Similarly, in the original ''[[Wild
* ''[[Metal Wolf Chaos]]'' has propaganda broadcasts from the Policy Promotion Department, making pronouncements like "A heart of '''Justice''' is a heart that loves '''Freedom'''." This is when they're not promising to execute everyone who's even tangentially connected to Metal Wolf.
* Abraham Reyes from ''[[Red Dead Redemption]]'' gives speeches that have him throwing around rabble-rousing buzzwords such as "Freedom" and "For the people!" And while the people drink it up, it's obvious to Marston and the player that he's nothing more than a self-important blowhard. {{spoiler|You only get to see how fake he really is in the epilogue, when a newspaper blurb spells out to you that he's become a dictator.}}
* ''[[
** {{spoiler|Which she probably did on purpose to make Snake believe she really went quite crazy and actually believes that siding with Volgin is the right thing to do.}}
* While "heart", "light", and "darkness" have always been main concepts in the ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' series, ''[[Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep]]'' spams them throughout the script so often theat they start to lose their meaning as time goes on.
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[The Tick (animation)|The Tick]]'' more-or-less [[
* ''[[The Fairly
* ''[[Batman: The Brave
== [[Real Life]] ==
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** Of course, it ''is'' possible to figure out politicians are all about by looking at what, specifically, they are planning to do if they get elected - and if you don't trust them to be honest about that, you can at least look at their track record so far. They just count (with some justification) on most voters not looking any deeper than those meaningless but nice-sounding sound bites...
** In fact, 99% of the time you can just skip right to the track record, as what they're "planning to" do has little or no correlation with what they actually do.
**
* While the invocation of "freedom", "justice" and "liberty" tend to be Americans' preference, European, politicians tend to make more understated speeches: they usually don't go further than "social equality", "citizenship", and "the republic" in the worst case (but that's from French Persident Sarkozy's administration, and that guy is very much into "American" methods). However, when talking about ''other'' countries, "democracy" and "human rights" pop up very frequently. There was a fad with "change" to try to copy Obama's vibe, but it settled very quickly.
** In Britain the current concepts are fairness and progressiveness. Every policy of the Tory party in government is fair and progressive. Every policy of the Labour party in opposition is fair and progressive. The only way to tell them apart is that the Tories will occasionally throw in "[[For Great Justice|justice]]" for good measure.
* During the bloody period of [[The French Revolution]], the phrase 'for the people!' or 'for France!' was used to justify repression, mass murder, and ill-thought out wars that sent France's economy down the toilet.
▲** That's hardly unusual. Cheap concepts have been used to justify anything and everything - from mass murder to children's rights to efficient sewage disposal - since the dawn of politics. "Freedom" and "justice" were already soundbites in the Roman Republic, over 2000 years ago.
* John Stuart Mill supported freedom. G.W.F. Hegel supported Freedom. What is meant by freedom in each case is VERY different from the other. This sometimes leads to leads to political [[Blue and Orange Morality]] between the two factions.
* Many who oppose Obama contend that his famous slogans of "Hope" and "Change" and "Yes We Can" were a little too vague.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Script Speak]]
[[Category:Bad Writing Index]]
[[Category:Motivation Index]]
▲[[Category:Concepts Are Cheap]]
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