Reassigned to Antarctica: Difference between revisions

[[File:rockall.jpg|frame|They must've screwed up ''big time'' to deserve this.]]

 

 

When a character is transferred to a remote and/or unpleasant outpost as punishment for annoying the higher-ups for some reason (bad job performance, personality conflicts, or perhaps ''good'' job performance that a superior finds threatening).

 

If the character in question is reassigned to a likely fatal job, this becomes [[The Uriah Gambit]].

 

(Incidentally, the picture shows actual Royal Marines occupying [[wikipedia:Rockall|Rockall]], which really is a lump of rock sticking up in the middle of the Atlantic. The UK government claims it because it gives it territorial rights to the sea around it. They didn't have to stay there long though.)

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* Major Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach in ''[[From Eroica with Love]]'' likes to threaten his men with a transfer to Alaska should they fail in their job. He follows through on this threat at least once. (But they are eventually forgiven and come back, not to mention that they had it quite easy in Alaska - so maybe it's a subversion?)

* Trigger-happy [[Small Girl, Big Gun]] Kome Sawaguchi from ''[[Blue Seed]]'' points to this trope when the team commander asks here to exercise a little self-control. "If I could control myself, I never would have been assigned to this unit!"

* In ''[[Codename: Sailor V]]'' Inspector Wakagi ends up being (temporarily) transferred to Siberia (somehow it's within the jurisdiction of the Tokyo Police) by his Superintendent-General for being beaten by Sailor V at solving a case too many times.

* The crew of the ''[[Irresponsible Captain Tylor]]'s'' ship gets shipped off to the "galactic boonies" in the second quarter of the series. The series averts [[Reassignment Backfire]] though, as almost nothing relevant to the war with the Raalgon occurs until they're on their way back.

* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', it occurs twice: Mustang's team is scattered to different parts of Amestris, and Olivier Armstrong is transferred to Central after it becomes clear they know a bit too much about the military's inner workings. Both result in ''major'' [[Reassignment Backfire]].

** In [[Fullmetal Alchemist (anime)|the 2003 anime version]], Roy gets sent to the North between the end of the series and the movie {{spoiler|after killing Pride.}}.

* In [[Tegami Bachi]], {{spoiler|Lag is reassigned to the Cold Letter division, being forced to deliver letters that have sat a long time without being delivered, because the new director doesn't like his trying to become Head Bee, the position that he also wants}}.

* Happens to Anabuki Tomoko in ''[[Strike Witches]]''. For some reason, [[The Ace]] and the star of the propaganda movie is transferred to the middle of nowhere in Suomus and then having to raise a squadron out of some misfits. Naturally, she's pissed off.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* The [[Black Panther]]'s State Department ally is reassigned to the arctic, probably because he befriended the man when the USA didn't like him or his country. Being a friend of Wakanda just means you get picked up in a ship when you get in trouble. Hurray!

* ''[[Knights of the Dinner Table]]'': When Hard 8 reinstates Nitro's GM credentials, it is with the provisio that he is only allowed to GM the Pee Wee Hackleague.

 

== [[Film]] ==

* Happens in [[The Movie]] of the graphic novel ''[[Whiteout]]'', as mentioned under "comic books" above. Although in this case, it is a self-imposed exile.

* Happens to Nicholas Angel in ''[[Hot Fuzz]]'', though that is for being too ''good'' at his job. Also a [[Kicked Upstairs]] in that he is promoted to Sergeant, so his superiors can spin the new assignment as a reward.

* It's mentioned in ''[[Hellboy II]]'' that Hellboy got John Meyers transferred to Antarctica, explaining his [[Put on a Bus|absence from the film]].

** Though given Hellboy's grudging acceptance of Meyers by the end of the first film, it's likely that he arranged it [[Subversion|to protect one of his few normal human friends]].

{{quote|'''Dreyfus:''' If she's not in your custody in five minutes, you'll be checking parking meters ''in Martinique!''}}

* At the end of ''G Force'', the government agent who constantly denounced and pestered the team is reassigned to Antarctica.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* [[Tom Clancy]]: In [[The Hunt for Red October]]; the enlisted are told that if they reveal that the decommissioned submarine, used as a decoy wreck, was scuttled at sea then they would be Reassigned to Antarctica. Specifically, they will be sent to [[wikipedia:McMurdo Sound|McMurdo Sound]], which is an Antarctic research base.

* Chigago PD's Special Investigations (SI) department in ''[[The Dresden Files]]''. The division is nominally for handling "weird" stuff, some of which is actually magic. However, it also happens to be professional Siberia in CPD-politics-land. Dresden comments on this from time to time, mostly because these are some of the sharpest, and bravest (Loup-garu incident anyone?) agents in the police force, but they either pissed off their previous bosses, or some major politician. Probably both. Or Marcone.

** To be sure, they don't ''universally ''land themselves there by being grossly competent and by contributing to civil order and [[Sarcasm Mode|such terrible things]], but the ones who stick around tend to be this. (The rest quit out. Or die.) It also helps that they have an honest-to-goodness [[A Wizard Did It|Wizard]], [[Big Damn Heroes|Harry]] [[This Is for Emphasis, Bitch|motherf***ing]] [[Badass|Dresden]].

*** {{spoiler|Vince Graver}} quit when he found out he was voluntold, and has been doing significantly better for himself as a PI than Harry. Or anyone in SI, for the matter.

* In [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]'s ''[[Vorkosigan Saga]]'' young Miles, who has already developed a reputation for treating his superiors as "cattle to be driven" graduates from the Imperial Academy and is assigned as weather officer to a brutal training camp nicknamed "Camp Permafrost" in order to teach him a lesson in subordination. He finds himself under the command of a [[General Ripper|homicidal psychopath]] who was also Reassigned to Antarctica for suspected war crimes. Cue [[Reassignment Backfire]].<ref>in a [[Zig Zag Trope|zig-zagged]] sort of way. It's really awful for his superior, but not hot for him either. He eventually recovers. The superior does ''not''.</ref>

** It turns out that this, like so many things about the Vorkosigan family, is genetic. Miles's father Aral explains to Miles that he was once CO of Camp Permafrost for about six months "During the period when my career was, so to speak, in political eclipse." When Miles asked him about his experiences Aral admitted he was [[Drowning My Sorrows|drunk most of the time]].

*** In an earlier book we learned that Aral's first command after Camp Permafrost, the cruiser ''General Vorkraft'', was nicknamed "Vorkosigan's Leper Colony" because of all of the [[New Meat]], politcal unreliables, screwups and borderline psycho cases that were assigned to his command as punishment for him and for them. Not surprisingly this also resulted in an [[Reassignment Backfire]] because Vorkosigan epitomizes [[A Father to His Men]].

** Lt. Vormoncrief, as mentioned in the page quote, gets sent to the above-mentioned Camp Permafrost in ''A Civil Campaign''. Spreading phony murder accusations about an Imperial Auditor (who happens to be the Emperor's foster brother) because they got the girl you were after? Likely to really tick off the Emperor. ''Convincing'' people that the Emperor is too incompetent to keep peace in the capital, two weeks before his wedding? Reassignment to Antarctica, and lucky to be laundry officer when you get there.

* In [[Harry Turtledove]]'s ''[[Ruled Britannia]]'', Lieutenant de Vega is constantly threatening his lazy servant with reassignment to Scotland until he gets some better blackmail.

** The ''[[Timeline-191]]'' series features recommendations along the lines of "heading up the Coast Guard in Nebraska" for officers who screw up badly enough. ([[Don't Explain the Joke|Nebraska is landlocked]].)

* Happens to various characters in the ''[[Star Wars]]'' [[Expanded Universe]].

* Early in ''[[Seven Days in May]]'', a Pentagon communications officer blabs to the book's protagonist (a fellow officer) about a seemingly-innocuous bit of gambling by some high-ranking officers, neither of them knowing that it's actually a code related to a looming military coup. In a genre-savvy moment, instead of a heavy-handed punishment detail, the coup-leader has the blabber shipped off to Hawaii.

* In the legendarily bad ''[[Battlefield Earth]]'', head [[Big Bad]] Turl is stuck on the backwater mining planet of Earth because he pissed off some of the wrong people back home.

* In ''[[Brave New World (novel)|Brave New World]]'', at the end Bernard Marx and his friend Helmholtz Watson are sent to Iceland and the Falkland islands respectively. Helmholtz even looks forward to living on the remote Falkland Islands, where he can become a serious writer.

* In ''Away Boarders'', a comedic novel by retired Admiral and [[Real Life]] [[Badass]] Dan Gallery, the crew of a Navy landing craft stationed in the Mediterranean participates in certain events that, while they helped substantially defuse tension in the Middle East during the 1960s, would be extremely embarrassing to several nations if they were made public. All of the crew save one are willing to keep their mouths shut. That last one made the mistake of openly announcing his intention to sell the story to ''Time'' magazine before passing out drunk. By the time he sobered up he was 100 miles upriver on a Swift Boat in Vietnam.

* In [[Dan Abnett]]'s [[Gaunt's Ghosts]] novel ''Honour Guard'', Lugo's glory-seeking actions nearly lost the planet Haiga to Chaos, and as a consequence, he was dumped there as Imperial Governor. {{spoiler|Then, that meant, in ''Sabbat Martyr'', he was there for the return of Saint Sabbat. That, however, does not go all his way.}}

* Happens occasionally in the ''[[Conqueror]]'' books to Chinese diplomats who screw up. Wen Chao was assigned ambassador to the Mongols and Tartars after missing a meeting due to a night with a particularly good prostitute, and ''everybody'' at Shizuishan fort is a screw-up in some way.

* In ''[[Phule's Company]]'', Space Legion captain Willard Phule is sent by vindictive superiors to lead Omega Squad, the remote dumping ground for the Legion (which is pretty much a dumping ground itself.) [[Reassignment Backfire]] of course occurs almost immediately.

* This is how the plot of the ''The Robe'' by Lloyd C. Douglas is kickstarted when this trope happens to the protagonist [[Officer and a Gentleman|Marcellus]].

* The ''[[Thieves' World]]'' anthologies begin with this. The Emperor has a young, charismatic, and, unfortunately, naive half-brother; he's a constant magnet for plots and conspirators, but the Emperor isn't willing to have him killed when he hasn't done anything. Solution: assign him as governor of the small, out-of-the-way town of Sanctuary...

* [[John Hemry]]'s ''Stark's War'' trilogy involves U.S. soldiers stationed on the Moon. At one point, Stark, having taken command, warns that if one of his subordinates takes her [[Friend in the Black Market|wheeling-and-dealing]] ways too far, "I'll post her on sentry duty at the lunar pole for so long she'll think she's a space penguin."

* In [[Rick Cook]]'s ''[[Limbo System]]'', about a third of the people onboard were sent as punishment or exile of some kind.

* In [[Michael Flynn]]'s ''[[Spiral Arm|January Dancer]]'', Fa Li complained too often that the Rift was not watched closely enough and got sent there.

 

* Colonel Klink in ''[[Hogan's Heroes]]'' was often threatened with a transfer to the Eastern Front.

** As was Colonel von Strohm in ''[['Allo 'Allo!|Allo Allo]]''.

** A CIA Agent acquaintance of Colonel Jack O'Neil named Burke ended up being sent to Honduras as a form of exile because he allegedly turned traitor. In actuality, he took the fall to cover up his fellow agent, Woods' true status as a traitor (as well as having to kill Woods for it out of self defense) in order to ensure that Cindy Woods, Woods' wife, got the pension after his death, so in this particular case, the reason is because of [[No Good Deed Goes Unpunished]].

* A traffic police officer in ''[[Spooks]]'' was reassigned to Orkney after trying to impound one of the agents' cars.

** There's also Londo Mollari: He got the ambassador job to Babylon 5 because the Centauri considered the job to be a joke at best and a death sentence at worst. Given that he gains a lot of influence {{spoiler|and later becomes the Emperor}} as a direct result of having taken the job, this can be considered a case of [[Reassignment Backfire]].

** Not like the other examples here, though. Winchester came to the 4077 thinking it was only for one surgery he had expertise in. However, with Frank Burns gone, Potter needed a replacement and managed to convince Winchester's CO to transfer him permanently. If not for Burns not staying and for Potter's persistence, the CO wouldn't have re-assigned Winchester anywhere regardless of being beaten at cards.

* ''[[Law and Order]]'': After Mike Logan punches a politician in the face, he gets transferred to Staten Island, which is as close to Antarctica as the City of New York gets (both literally and figuratively). He eventually comes to refer to his job as "finding stolen lawnmowers", a far cry from his original position with his Manhattan homicide unit.

*** To add extra insult, the head of the Obsidian Order, the intelligence service/SecretPolice force that exiled Garak, was {{spoiler|Garak's father}}.

** Early episodes of DS9 imply that Major Kira was given her post on the station because she was kind of a pain in the ass.

* On ''[[Scrubs]]'', [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|Dr.]] [[The Last DJ|Cox]] was temporarily reassigned to helping at the prison after he interrupted [[Manipulative Bastard|Dr. Kelso's]] [[Hannibal Lecture]] to Elliott (in an attempt by Kelso to [[Break the Cutie]]) with an unexpected [[Shut UP, Hannibal|punch to the face]]. Although shortlived, it still caused Dr. Cox plenty of grief, especially since it took away from his time with his young son.

* In ''[[Mad Men]]'' Englishman Lane Price, just settling into [[Big Applesauce|New York]], narrowly avoids being reassigned to Bombay.

* The basic premise of ''[[The Good Guys]]''. Detective Stark is a [[Cloudcuckoolander]] [[Cowboy Cop]] who can't be fired because of his heroic exploits back in the eighties. Detective Bailey was a young up-and-comer who decided to correct the Lieutenant's grammar. The season pilot had them searching for a broken humidifier, and it's gone downhill from there. This is despite all the important cases they accidentally close, due to a string of bad luck and embarrassments along the way.

* Inversion in ''[[Small Wonder]]'': Vicky's inventor and one of his co-workers are vying for a promotion. Co-worker's daughter secretly makes suggestions to Vicky to make his competitor look bad. Vicky takes the suggestions quite literally, and the co-worker wins the promotion. And then it turns out to be a transfer to Iceland.

{{quote|'''Bud''': ''[After Tim mentions being "tired"]'' Did my wife tell you what happened to the vice president who threw the game?

'''Tim''': Wearing a turban?

* In one episode of ''[[Night Court]]'', Assistant DA Dan Fielding- who was in the US Army Reserves - was called into duty, told only that he was being sent into a war zone. Dan was prepared with fake medical records and crutches to prove he was unfit for combat duty. His tune changed when his commanding officer showed up with his orders - said commanding officer being a [[Hot Amazon]] and said orders involving going undercover with her, posing as a couple, doing reconnaissance in some tropical paradise turned [[Banana Republic]]. When Dan's [[Bumbling Sidekick]] Phil shows up pretending to be Dan's boyfriend (Plan B) and Dan's plan to disobey orders is exposed, he is reassigned to the Arctic Circle to help give physicals to polar bears.

* In the made for TV [[Burn Notice]] movie ''[[The Fall of Sam Axe]]'', Sam is sent to a crummy operation in Columbia because he slept with the wife of a powerful admiral. Who caught him in the act.

* ''[[Degrassi]]'' combined this with [[Dropped a Bridge on Him]] when Dan Woods left the show - Raditch was reassigned after the school shooting.

 

== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==

** It is sometimes implied that General Halftrack was put in charge of Camp Swampy because he's too incompetent to manage anything more important.

 

* In ''[[The Men From The Ministry]]'', the main characters' boss frequently threatens to reassign them to the Outer Hebrides.

* In ''[[The Navy Lark]]'', this is pretty much how the crew of ''HMS Troutbridge'' was assembled. The Admiralty's apparent thought process was to keep all the screw-ups and schemers in one place—namely one broken-down frigate. Given the [[Cloudcuckoolander|mental capacities]] of some of the admirals, though, this policy has [[Hilarity Ensues|the expected result]].

 

 

* This is why not to have sex with [[Femme Fatale|Hedy]] in ''[[How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying]]''. The company president is after her as well, and there are plenty of jobs open in Venezuela . . .

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* [[Luminous Arc]]: It takes a bit of figuring out, but this is apparently what Kingston did to Heath when the latter started to get too suspicious, creating a program to raise war-orphans as child soldiers to get him out of the way for almost a decade. {{spoiler|Naturally, [[Reassignment Backfire|he shot himself in the foot by doing this.]]}}

* It is implied in ''[[Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker]]'' that Coldman, the CIA Director prior to the aftermath of Operation Snake Eater, being made the CIA Station Chief of Central America was a result of this trope, [[The Exile|Exile]], and [[Kicked Upstairs]] due to his involvement in creating the Virtuous Mission and Operation Snake Eater.

* A possible ending for {{spoiler|Norman Jayden}} in ''[[Heavy Rain]]''.

* ''[[Suikoden III]]'': It's made clear to [[Non-Action Guy|Thomas]] that the Zexen Confederacy has sent him to oversee the struggling Budehuc Castle just to get him out of the way. In his case, the only thing he's really done to warrant this treatment is ''exist'', given that {{spoiler|he's the [[Heroic Bastard|illegitimate son]] of a Zexen council member}}.

* Although no one is threatened with reassignment there, Camp Golf is meant to be treated this way in ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'', as Boone mentions that it's "The only resort in New Vegas that no one wants to get sent to."

* Lyude, from ''[[Baten Kaitos]]'' was reassigned to Nashira, because he unfortunately was too much of a decent human being.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* Sapphire Guard in ''[[Order of the Stick]]'' had a habit of remembering they have [[Knight Templar|Miko]] whenever they had to send someone [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0265.html far, far away on a months-long mission]. Such a representative noticeably harmed their image, though.

* ''[[Girl Genius]]'' had Violetta [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20110909 reassigned into Mechanicsburg] because she "wasn't ''good enough''"... [[Subversion|supposedly]].

* ''[[Widdershins]]'' had a private who [http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/may-20th-2014/ caught this] as a result of sleeping on guard duty and losing the [[Blame Game]] he allowed to start.

([[Gilligan Cut|cut to]] Dominik trotting on the snow, with glaciers in background) }}

 

* In ''[[Decades of Darkness]]'', an [[Alternate History]] timeline, being transferred to the West African colony of Whydah is considered this for members of the American military. The American State Department's equivalent assignment is Liberia.

* In Reds A Revolutionary Timeline the United American Socialist Republics became Stalin's go to dumping ground for those too popular to kill.

* The [[SCP Foundation]] files make occasional use of this. For displaying either egregious stupidity or horrific violations of common decency, (i.e. rearranging the furnishings of a young blind girl for a laugh) someone can be reassigned to Keter duty. Keter is the classification used for objects or beings that show an active, intense hostility towards human life, civilization, or existence itself. As they often have to have incredibly difficult and precise means of containment and can cause significant destruction if they breach their containment, this tends to lead to a dangerous, short lived assignment for many of the people assigned to such duties.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'', "The Impractical Joker": Roy has played a practical joke on Orson, who vows revenge but is secretly pulling off a [[Paranoia Gambit]]. Shortly thereafter, an inspector, who appears to be Orson in a [[Paper-Thin Disguise]], arrives on the farm. Roy just mocks him and ''begs'' to be sent to the South Pole, even trying to throw mud on the "inspector". After the inspector falls into Orson's waller, the ''real'' Orson walks up. As Roy contemplates this turn of events, the inspector declares that he really will banish Roy. As Roy runs away in panic, the inspector turns out to be {{spoiler|Lanolin in disguise}}.

** It's because this reassignment was just a disguised suicide mission. The Tallest sent him there not knowing there was a planet in the vicinity and hoped he would die along the way. They're a little more blunt when it comes to Skoodge, though: "You will be assigned to Blorch, home of the slaughtering rat people."

* Happens once in ''[[Johnny Bravo]]'' when Johnny is given to a ''foster family'' in Antarctica.

* About half of the main cast in ''[[Transformers Animated]]''. Bumblebee and Bulkhead were assigned space bridge repair detail as punishment for an incident in boot camp (though Bulkhead didn't mind), while Optimus himself was put in as their captain because it was about the highest position he qualified for after the Elita-1 incident.

* In the two-part ''[[American Dad]]'' episode "Stan of Arabia", Stan is reassigned to a post in Saudi Arabia after screwing up his supervisor's anniversary roast party, and naturally his family goes with him. It doesn't go well.

* In an episode of the [[Dilbert (animation)|Dilbert]] cartoon, two teams within Dilbert's company (his team and that of the one-off villain Lena) are pitted against each other to finish a task, with the team that fails being reassigned to [[Take That|Albany, New York (cue an image of a desolate, snowy waste)]].

* The trope is subverted in the [[Private Snafu]] cartoon, ''The Oupost'', which was intended to teach US soldiers that being assigned to remote locations is not a punishment, but a chance to participate in an important part of the United States' vital worldwide observation network to help win [[World War II]].

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* When French Lt. Colonel Georges Picquart uncovered evidence of the framing of fellow officer Alfred Dreyfus for the crime of high treason in 1896, he was hastily reassigned to Tunisia in order to keep the matter quiet. It didn't work.

* In Czarist Russia, aristocrats with unfitting opinions were often sent to Siberia permanently. It wasn't all that bad, as they still remained aristocrats and lived in relative comfort (unlike non-aristocrats sent to Siberia, who got to live in prisons), but it did effectively neutralize them politically.

* Catholic clergy who somehow manage to seriously anger the Vatican enough might be sent away to remote "contemplative monasteries." More or less the same situation as the [[Father Ted]] example above.

** [[wikipedia:Jacques Gaillot|Jacques Gaillot]] provides a "metaphorical" example, in which he wasn't actually exiled, but the intent was the same. Gaillot's liberal views made him unpopular with the Catholic Church hierarchy, and so he was demoted from Bishop of Évreux, France to Bishop of Partenia. Partenia is a See which used to be a major Algerian city- used to because it was buried under the Sahara in the 5th century. (He didn't actually have to ''go'' there—it's called a titular diocese. The point is that he stayed a bishop but didn't get to have a real diocese.)

* As punishment for scandalous conduct, the Roman poet Ovid was exiled by Augustus to Tomis, a port in Black Sea (now modern-day Constanţa, Romania).

** Augustus was nothing if not consistent. Several of his descendants whom he considered to be scandalous or embarrassing found themselves exiled to godforsaken flyspecks in the Mediterranean (which for a Roman was very slightly better than the Black Sea.)

* Although the he headed the development for the hugely successful [[Game Boy]], Gunpei Yokoi was given a "window job" after its disastrous follow-up, the [[Virtual Boy]]. Without any direct influence in the company, he left to develop the Wonderswan with Bandai.

* Apple did this to Steve Jobs in 1985, moving him to an office that was even nicknamed "Siberia," before he actually quit.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]