Reign of Terror: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

Well, as soon as [[Les Collaborateurs]] have been judged, condemned and executed, of course. And we need to take care of all the enemies and reactionaries within us who still wish to undermine the new regime. And I'm afraid those people who fought for the revolution along with me have just been revealed to be [[We ARE Struggling Together!|traitors as well]]! I have no choice, I have to seize more powers to deal with all the dangers which threaten our ideals, create a [[Secret Police|special force]] charged to [[Witch Hunt|investigate those who would betray the revolution]] and [[Kangaroo Court|an extraordinary jury to condemn them quickly]].

[[Utopia Justifies the Means|It's all for the sake of our freedom so direly gained, of course.]]

 

This is often a consequence of [[The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized]] and having an army of [[Knight Templar|Knights Templar]] in your ranks.

 

Named after the Reign of Terror in [[The French Revolution]], when the guillotine was used and overused against many people.

 

{{examples}}

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

* One country that Kino visits in ''[[Kino's Journey]]'' replaced a tyrant king with the rule of majority. First the people voted to kill the king and his family, then his supporters and their family. Then anyone who disagreed with the majority. The country is left with one man after he and his wife voted to kill the third man, and then the wife died of an unrelated illness. ( having a doctor would have helped.)

* The Egyptian novel, ''The Thief and the Dogs'' has this as the setting's backstory. Said Mahran (the main character) was a [[Just Like Robin Hood]] thief fighting against the colonialist European government during the revolutions of the 1950's. [[It Got Worse|Unfortunately for him,]] his closest allies in the movement, Ilish Sidra and Rauf Ilwan, basically seize power for themselves. The result? Egypt is no better off than it was before (really the only difference is the totalitarian leaders are Egyptian instead of Euroean) and Said is out for revenge as the book starts.

 

** Which teaches us all the [[Fantastic Aesop]] "Don't look into cursed mirrors."

*** It's left up to the audience to decide whether the mirror was really cursed or if it was all part of the dictator's paranoia.

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' did an episode set during [[The French Revolution]] that was actually titled "Reign of Terror".

* As did ''[[The Time Tunnel]]'' .

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

** Better than anyone else's reign of terror at the moment, save the Tau whose ignorance of psykers would spell doom for any psychically active species (like humans) run by them.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* [[Truth in Television]], alas.

* The [[wikipedia:French Revolution|French Revolution]], being the [[Trope Namer]].

** To be more precise, both the Reds and the Whites engaged in large-scale terror and repression, especially during the Russian Civil War. Interestingly, the majority of the deaths were incidental, as both the Red and White Armies 'conscripted' men and grain from the villages, leaving them with no one to till the fields and no food to eat. The majority of the deaths were caused by starvation, diseases related to starvation and [[No Party Like a Donner Party|cannibalism.]]

** Played very much straight in Ireland, where Cromwell is still remembered as unholy terror, though again, Cromwell was not actually reigning in Ireland at the time he was there. What he was doing was carrying out the Rump's will to ensure the Irish (who most English despised) would never be in a position to cause trouble ever again and take revenge for wildly inflated tales (with some substance) of Protestant massacres by the revolting Irish in the 1640s. Cromwell explained his tactics as trying to prevent an effusion of blood by scaring them into submission basically. It didn't work immediately, and this trope is really the only recourse once you've started down that path. Ireland suffered greatly, and while it must be remembered that some of the massacres committed by Cromwell's men are ''also'' inflated and taken out of context, said massacres were not the only reason he was reviled by the Irish. More galling to them was his confiscation of all land owned by Catholics East of the Shannon River, and his [[The Exile|banishment of them]] to lands West of the Shannon, saying that they could go "To Hell or Connaught."

*** Some of Cromwell's massacres were ''not'' blown out of proportion, however - it is estimated that Cromwell's troops killed roughly 3,500 people (soldiers and civilians) at both Drogheda and Wexford after the battles there. Fortunately, he was persuaded not to do so after the Siege of Clonmel; being impressed (and one would imagine, exasperated) that he lost some 2,000 men in the fight there. Coincidentally, Clonmel is this troper's hometown.

*** It's also worth noting that Cromwell is also credited, by the very same land seizures and exilment of Irish folk to the Western province (historically the poorest one in terms of agriculture), to have single handedly started the rapid decline of Irish Gaelic Civilization. When we think of War of the Three Kingdoms period Ireland, we imagine them to be basically the same as Anglicized Scots only they speak Irish. The truth was native Irish Culture at the time was incredibly sophisticated and vetted, with styles of dress, societal norms and other minutae that legitimized it being called a 'Civilization' rather then just a culture. By destroying so many lives, confiscating lands and effectively forcing the Gaelic Nobility into banishing themselves to the continent as well as encted further repressive measures he is een by many as the start of the decay decline and possibly the eventual destruction of any cultural link modern Irish have with their ancient ancestors besides language. So basically as far as the Irish are concerned, Cromwell was a mass murdering monster who then went ahead and made things worse when the blood stopped being spilled.

* The American Revolution, however, was an interesting subversion (mostly). The first U.S. government was too weak, so the Founding Fathers had to create a system where the government was strong, but would not abuse its power. And then they ''did it'', thus creating one of the very few revolutions where (almost) everyone behaved themselves after they'd gained power. The exceptions:

** Pro-British native populations, for whom the revolution, and even the coming decades, and for that matter most of the past and following century, would often be a Reign of Terror.

*** The American Revolution was not as violent as other revolutions due to the fact that the founding fathers [[Not So Different|were not that different]], either ideologically or socially, from their former British masters. They were both wealthy white men, after all. As such, they had little interest in eliminating any pre-existing institutions (or persons associated with said institutions) that existed during colonial times (except for the monarchy).

*** The colonies had practiced a large degree of self-governance for many years before the revolution, so they didn't have to build everything from scratch once the British were gone. This made everything a lot more stable.

** Most of the indigenous Indian population had sided with the British, so the new country struck back at them, forming the first step of the United States' lovely treatment of Native Americans.

[[Category:Civil Unrest Tropes]]

[[Category:Politics Tropes]]