Grand Inquisitor Scene

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In stories set in a dystopian society, there is usually the one scene in the story where a dissident of the society has a "meeting of the minds" with a high ranking official of the society. During the meeting, the official can perfectly understand where the dissident is coming from with his objections, but has a rebuttal for each one, and explains why his vision for the society, or how the world should be, simply doesn't work and why its flawed. In a Crapsack World setting, the official will state how they've stamped it out and such.

Usually also serves as a Hannibal Lecture, as the dissident has their mind blown by how the authorities are so much smarter and more powerful than the dissident dreamed.

There are also cases where the official doesn't support the society, but simply just explains how it works and why people think the way they think.

Examples of Grand Inquisitor Scene include:

Film

• The confrontation between Beale and the CEO in Network.
• The Matrix (the 1st one): Agent Smith (as the "official [who] doesn't support the society") during his interrogation of Morpheus.
• Equilibrium finishes on one of these, with the added bonus that the official also doesn't believe it either.

Literature

• Trope Namer: The Brothers Karamazov, in a story-within-the-story. Note that the dissident is, in this case, Jesus Christ who had resurrected a little girl from death. He gets arrested by the Holy Inquisition, and the Grand Inquisitor tells him he should have given in to all of the Devil's temptations in the wilderness, because then the Church would rule the world. As he won't, the Grand Inquisitor says he isn't wanted by them and should leave. Jesus does, after giving him a kiss.
  • It's not quite that black and white. The Grand Inquisitor claims Christ sinned by not giving into the temptations because giving in would have meant giving man food, miracles to believe in, and an authority to rule them; here's the other wiki's explanation. The Grand Inquisitor, and the author of the story, Ivan, believe that Christ should have traded free will and a choice in whether or not to worship God for a comfortable life. It's Ivan's struggle to reconcile an "uncaring" God and the alternative atheism, which he believes would lead to a world where morals don't matter since heaven and hell don't matter, and don't act as a deterrent. His solution is that the Church should rule the world; Christ did not allow this, ergo he sinned and the Grand Inquisitor yells at him for it.
• Nineteen Eighty-Four: Probably one of the most iconic. The scene where O'Brien tortures Winston in Room 101 and tells him the skinny about how the Party controls the populace, and where it is going in the future. Part of this talk also takes place too, however, through Goldstein's book.

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

• Brave New World: The scene where John and Mustapha Mond talk about the World State. John argues for a world in which meaningful art, passion, family, and God have a place again, but Mond shoots down everything John brings up. He agrees with him that the old world had more meaning to it, but that it had to be sacrificed for stability.
• The Giver: Pretty much every session with Jonas, The Giver explains why Sameness exists, and why things are done the way they are done. He later supports Jonas in bringing the society down however.
• Fahrenheit 451: Captain Beatty has a discussion with Montag about why books are banned, because they can potentially be offensive.
• The Patrician in Discworld gets one of these per novel that he shows up in.
• Shows up in the granddaddy of dystopias, We. Here, the Great Benefactor explains to D-503 the One State's inhuman actions.
• In Ray Bradbury's "The Flying Machine", a man in ancient China invents a flying machine, and the Emperor informs him that his machine must burn and he must die lest enemies use the contraption to attack the Empire.
• In Harlan Ellison's "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman, the Ticktockman (officially, the Master Timekeeper) does indeed tell Harlequin to repent during their Grand Inquisitor Scene.
• The flashback of A Study in Scarlet has a member of the Mormon community (originally a Gentile) being questioned by nothing less than Brigham Young himself about his refusal to take multiple wives or marry his daughter to a Mormon.
• In Ape and Essence by Aldous Huxley, Dr. Poole is brought into the Unholy of Unholies to hear the Arch-Vicar lecture him on the proof of Belial's existence and the historical inevitability of His triumph over man.

Live Action TV

• Roj Blake's dressing-down in the first episode of Blakes Seven.
• The Twilight Zone episode The Obsolete Man, depicts a future dystopian society where a librarian named Wordsworth, played by Burgess Meredith, is sentenced to death by the chancellor (Fritz Weaver) for being "obsolete". He asks to have the chancellor visit him just before he is about to die, the method of which he is able to choose. They debate the morality of a society where a person's right to live is determined by their worth to the state. Wordsworth then reveals that they are being televised, and he has chosen to die by having the now locked room set to explode at midnight. After a while, the chancellor begs Wordsworth in the "name of God" to let him go. He does just before the room explodes. The chancellor now is condemned himself for showing cowardice and deemed "obsolete" by the same court he previously presided over.

Music

• Within the overall narrative of Rush's 2112, the fourth movement, Presentation, is this from a priest of the Temple of Syrinx to the protagonist.

Theatre

• In George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan, the Inquisitor delivers a long and very convincing speech on the necessity of the Inquistion to a young friar who doubts Joan's heresy.
  • There's also Burgoyne in The Devil's Disciple and the Roman Emperor in Androcles and the Lion. The latter asserts that he is actually a Christian evangelist—since Christian martyrs inspire converts, the more Christians he kills, the more Christians he creates.

Video Games

• Played with in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, almost to the point of a deconstruction. Every single faction gets several of these, but they also double as Author Tracts simultaneously, even when factions have radically opposing viewpoints.