My Rule Fu Is Stronger Than Yours: Difference between revisions

An easy way to subvert [[Can't Get Away with Nuthin']]. See also [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money]]. Compare [[Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right|Screw The Rules I'm Doing What's Right]] and [[Chaotic Good]], where Lawful and Good are on opposite sides, and [[Loophole Abuse]]. Any [[Rules Lawyer]] often uses the first variant, and is afraid of somebody using the second on him.

 

* In one of the ''[[Donald Duck]]'' comics, the Beagle Boys use many strange laws and [[Loophole Abuse|legal loopholes]] to get away with really stupid crimes (like stealing one certain kind of sandwich), just to piss off police and the judge. However, it backfires because the judge later finds other loopholes that make them guilty anyway (stealing that one kind of sandwich is not a crime... as long as you eat it after dusk).

* A large part of ''[[Knights of the Dinner Table]]'' is an ongoing Rule Fu duel between [[Game Master]] B. A. Felton and [[Rules Lawyer]] Brian Van Hoose. Brian usually gets the better of B.A., but when the campaign is on the line, B.A. pulls out a win.

 

 

* In ''[[The Incredibles]]'', Bob Parr (a.k.a. Mr. Incredible) works for an insurance company whose boss orders them to screw over the customers however possible; Bob gets around this by using [[Could Say It, But...]] to give the policy holders the information they need.

* [[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: In ''At World's End'', Barbossa opposes Jack's motion to the Brethren Court (to fight the EITC's armada) by quoting the code, calling his motion "an act of war", something which can only be declared by the Pirate King, an elected official. But since each Lord of the current Court only votes for himself, it's unlikely there will ever ''be'' a Pirate King again. Barbossa even calls on [[Lawful Neutral|Teague]] to make sure this rule is enforced. Jack then calls for a vote, and when everyone else votes for themselves, Jack votes for the one Lord who supports his motion: Elisabeth. Jack gets his way and, since he followed the rules, no one can even complain. ''Kapow!''

 

 

* Subverted in ''[[Discworld/Monstrous Regiment|Monstrous Regiment]]'': Jackrum pretends to pull this by citing a non-existent rule; Blouse later catches Jackrum out when checking the rulebook. Then does nothing about it, and indeed compliments Jackrum on the exactitude of his citation.

** This could be because he a) recognises on some level that Jackrum is very useful, b) also realises on some level that Jackrum could kill him in 2 seconds flat. It wouldn't be the first officer he's killed either.

 

 

* The ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' episode "The Ensigns of Command" revolved around a human colony on a world claimed by the Sheliak Corporate. The Sheliak demanded the removal of the human colonists before their own colonists arrived in four days; unfortunately, the colony has grown to the point that it would take three ''weeks'' to evacuate everyone. Picard tries to negotiate with the Sheliak only to be rebuffed as they [[Rules Lawyer|cite various terms of the ridiculously complicated Treaty of Armens]] which rule in their favor. Finally, Picard looks through the Treaty himself and discovers a clause he can use against the Sheliak: he invokes the right to have a neutral third party arbitrate, and chooses the Grizzelas, who won't come out of hibernation for another six months. This time, it's the Sheliak's turn to balk (and finally, acquiesce).

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYCjqmbsmYA And it was] [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|awesome]].

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'': In "Paradise Towers", the Doctor escapes the rules-obsessed Caretakers by citing various 'rules' that he has just made-up. None of the Caretakers are willing to admit that they are so unfamiliar with the rulebook that they don't recognise these 'rules'.

 

* ''[[Knights of the Dinner Table]]'' the gaming community of Muncie is made of this trope, but especially [[Rules Lawyer|Brian Vanhoose]] who never met a rule he couldn't exploit. For example, a frustrated [[Game Master|B.A.]] invoked [[Grappling with Grappling Rules|obscure "overbearing" rules]] in his game (a target is automatically overbeared by an angry mob, consisting of at least ten people) over Brian's objections and delivered a [[Humiliation Conga]] to his group. Brian responded by having each party member hire 10 beggars to act as a mob and started mercilessly overbearing monsters.

 

 

* Done once by Tristan from ''[[Angel Moxie]]'', when accused for wearing socks in breach of school's statutes on dress. She retorted that they were stockings and quoted a point that saying that if the student didn't want to wear the prescribed socks, she has to wear stockings; to the shock of the teacher, the statute didn't say anything about what those stockings should look like.

* In ''[[Skin Horse]]'', [http://www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/skinhorse/series.php?view=archive&chapter=35728 when trying to save a client from a BlackOps base.]

 

 

* [[Whateley Universe]] has Jadis' lawyer pull an epic one, made even more epic by going on for a good fifteen minutes, most of which is brushed over, but described as an epic battle, allowing the user to imagine it. Jadis got off.

 

 

* [http://www.snopes.com/college/admin/cakesale.asp Urban legend:] A modern student at Oxford or Cambridge points to a four-hundred year-old rule stating that the university must provide "cakes and ale" to him as he takes his exam. The university complies (with the modern equivalent, a burger and a Pepsi), and then promptly fines him for not wearing his sword to the examination.

** [[Truth in Television|The fact that a legal rule hasn't been invoked for centuries doesn't mean it has been repealed.]] [[wikipedia:Ashford v Thornton|Case in point...]]

** This also why tax forms in the US have a box to report any illegal income. If you've profited through any crime and don't report it, the government only has to prove that you have unaccounted-for income, so they can book you on tax evasion (and possibly filling out a falsified form) if nothing else. The presence of this box prevents any criminal from claiming that their illegal profits were unreported because they didn't fit any of the categories present.

 

 

* One [[Dark Horse Comics|Dark Horse]] comic involved a Steampunk robot that killed people according to Bible quotations. To stop it, the protagonist countered every quote with one that was the complete opposite: "The lord is invincible"/"Chariots of iron";

 

 

* Partway through ''[[Harry Potter]] and the Order of the Phoenix'', one of the students points out that Umbridge is in violation of one of her own arbitrary rules. Subverted in that [[Screw the Rules, I Make Them|all that happens is that the student gets a detention]].

 

 

* Done once in ''[[Pig City]]'': the [[Sadist Teacher]] becomes the new Director; only to lose his job when students prove he doesn't know Latin, which is required to perform this function.

* An episode of ''[[Doug]]'' has Doug's ''entire class'' put into detention by [[Dean Bitterman|Vice-Principal Bone]]. This prompts a ''Quailman'' [[Show Within a Show|fantasy sequence]] where Doug's superheroic alter ego faces down the Rulesmeister, master of arbitrary rules, and eventually defeats him by pointing out he's wearing mismatched socks, one of the many things he has a rule against. This carries over back into reality, when Mr. Bone snatches a comic book...and Doug points out that one of the rules is "No Grabbing Other Peoples' Comics!"

 

 

* Discussions on the merits of religion in general and Christianity in particular - which, as we all know, [[Blatant Lies|are always civil and polite]] - often involve a fair amount of [[The Bible|biblical]] Rule Fu. Expect Bible quotes containing bizarre and/or [[Values Dissonance]]-heavy rules to be tossed around liberally. More rarely, devout Christians arguing with ''other'' devout Christians may also play Rule Fu with the Bible.