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No Mere Windmill: Difference between revisions
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A [[Windmill Political]] is a threat that doesn't exist, but some people [[Windmill Crusader|believe it does]] or [[Straw Hypocrite|pretend]] [[Manipulative Bastard|that it does]]. There are lots of windmills, lots of people who (honestly or dishonestly) [[Crying Wolf|Cry Wolf]]. With so much nuttery and dishonesty going on, how is one to accept a ''real'' but really strange threat to be real?
Some threats are easy to mistake for windmills, but they turn out to be real threats.
There are four ways that this can come into play:
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For something to be No Mere Windmill, it must first be dismissed as a windmill. Thus, the trope is often closely related to [[Only Sane Man]], [[Ignored Expert]], [[Cassandra Truth]] and, depending on context, either [[The Cuckoolander Was Right]] or [[Straw Man Has a Point]].
In many cases, it is also related to [[The Conspiracy]] and [[Devil in Plain Sight]].
Likely to result in various forms of [[Dying Like Animals]]. See also [[Not So Harmless]].
Contrast [[Elephant in the Living Room]], where people actually do know that the problem is not a windmill, and [[Weirdness Censor]], where "nothing to see here" becomes a Windmill Political in itself.
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Just as with the supertrope Windmill Political: No contemporaty [[Real Life]] examples please, and no history examples except ones surrounded by a really thick consensus.
Not to be confused with ''[[G Gundam]]'', which includes a [[Humongous Mecha]] that disguises itself as a windmill, but is completely non-threatening.
{{examples}}
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* In ''[[War Games]]'', there’s nothing wrong with the computer. Nope. It’s just a hacker. It’s all his fault. And since this disaster ''could not'' have been caused by some random kid, he must have been working with the Russians. {{spoiler|No, it was the computer all along: A dangerous case of Garbage In Garbage Out, ascending towards [[The Computer Is Your Friend]]. This is a Type B case of [[Not Merely a Windmill]]: The main character knows what Joshua is up to, but nobody believes him}}.
* In ''[[Defendor]]'', the hero appears to be a lunatic going up against an imaginary [[Super Villain]] called "Captain Industry". Defendor may or may not actually believe this, but in either case the "Captains of Industry" is actually a metaphor for the very real threat of drug lords -- the very villains whom Defendor has been fighting all along. Thi makes it a Type A example.
* In ''[[Terminator]] II: Judgment Day'', we are introduced to a crazy woman who is obviously a paranoid schizophrenic. She even believes that evil robots from the future are out to get her, imagine that. To the great surprise of everyone except the audience, it eventually turns out that the robots are real and Sarah is completely sane (although traumatized). She knows exactly what a terminator really is, a straight Type B of this trope.
* The 1971 George C. Scott film ''[[They Might Be Giants (film)|They Might Be Giants]]''<ref>which, yes, is where [[They Might Be Giants|the band]] got their name</ref> bases its conflict on this trope. The protagonist believes himself to be [[Sherlock Holmes]], and is trying to convince his psychiatrist that not only is his claim true, but [[Criminal Mastermind|Moriarty]] is also at large in the city. {{spoiler|Since the ending [[Smash to Black|cuts out at the last second]], it's open to interpretation whether they finally meet and confront Moriarty, or are run over by a train.}}
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Iron Sky]]'', the flying saucer space nazis are very real, but when a certain hobo try to warn people about the threat they all just think he's crazy.
== Literature ==
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* The ''[[Degrassi the Next Generation]]'' [[Zombie Apocalypse]] Halloween Special has a Type C with the genetically modified food in the cafeteria from season 2. Emma just thought they were trying to poison the kids, but it turns out it's a [[Fate Worse Than Death]].
* In ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', Buffy's mother doesn't believe in vampires. Buffy stopped trying to explain the very real threat of vampires after her mother had her put in a mental hospital for believing such silly "[[Windmill Political|delusions]]". But in this setting, the vampires are very real.
** Also, {{spoiler|Buffy's roommate from the first episode of season four}} is in fact a demon, despite everyone saying that Buffy is just being neurotic.
* Type A: In the BBC TV series of ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'', a man with a placard reading "The End of the World is Nigh" is among those seen panicking in the street when the Vogons arrive.
** The same Type A is [[Played for Laughs]] in ''[[The Goodies]]'', only it's Tim wearing the placard and it's just an advertising gimmick for his chestnut stall. Of course, the world gets blown up "in an unprecedented show of international military cooperation" shortly thereafter.
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== Real Life ==
* One classic example is the people who kept believing that The Titanic was unsinkable, even while it was actually sinking. The Iceberg was dismissed as a mere windmill, but it most certainly was not. Many lives could have been spared if the leaders had faced reality a bit earlier.
** It wasn't just the leaders, sadly; in fact, many of the in-charge types (such as the ship's designer, Thomas Andrews) were quick to take action once they were made aware of the situation. Unfortunately, many of the passengers had bought into the hype about the ship's unsinkability and refused to leave the warm indoors and seemingly sturdy ship for a rickety lifeboat in the cold ocean (and many of the officers manning these lifeboats didn't bother to fill them and let them go at times with barely a quarter of their maximum capacity). This, of course, meant that by the time the ship's plight was all-too apparent, most of the lifeboats had gone and there were only a few left.
** Whilst useful as an example, the claim that Titanic was unsinkable is [[wikipedia:RMS Titanic#Unsinkable|apocryphal]]: basically, people were perfectly aware that the Titanic could sink. It's just that during the impact, the passengers barely felt the effect until it became visibly obvious that something was wrong.
* Most people believed that the warnings about the [[Those Wacky Nazis|Nazi Party]] was a [[Windmill Political]]. People read [[Hitler]]'s ''Mein Kampf'' and [[My God, You Are Serious|didn't believe he was serious]]. [[You Should Know This Already|We all know how it turned out in the end]].
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