Silly Reason for War: Difference between revisions

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* In ''[[Slayers|Slayers Gorgeous]]'', heroes...er, ''[[Anti-Hero|protagonists]]'' Lina Inverse and Naga the Serpent find themselves caught in a civil war between a local lord and his daughter, who's raised an army and marched on the palace. Her reason for rebellion? She wants a bigger allowance.

** And she already ''gets'' a pretty large one (which she is using to bankroll her rebellion - why her father is still paying her allowance while she's rebelling is never brought up), which is why her father is so worked up about her demands—a raise from from 50 gold a month to 200 gold a month is ''not'' chicken feed. Even Lina and Naga think her father is justified in being annoyed when they find out she wants quadruple her monthly allowance.

** And it also happens in ''Slayers: Great'', where the father and son of a famous golem-making family, Galia and Huey, are fighting a personal battle that they eventually try to settle by building giant golems and having them fight each other. The reason: Galia is obsessed with making [[Kawaii]] golems, to the extent he builds his mega-golem in the form of a [[Chibi]] Lina Inverse, even going so far as to spend time and effort causing it to make cute sound effects when it steps or does anything. Huey, on the other hand, is into ultra-realistic golems—and his favorite source material are beautiful, buxom women. His mega-golem is designed as a humungous statue of [[Gag Boobs|Naga]], and he devotes effort to making sure the breasts [[Gainaxing|jiggle like hers]]. When they finally reconcile, their first combined effort golem is a [[Betty Boop]] reference; a [[Super-Deformed]] woman's face atop a realistically sculpted sexy woman's body.

* In comic book ''[[The Smurfs|Smurf Versus Smurf]]'', a civil war erupts in the Smurf village over whether the word "[[Smurfing|smurf]]" should be used as an adjective (south end) or a verb (north end). This gets funnier in languages that allow for many composite words (e.g. Dutch and German) because now the war is about whether the proper term is "corksmurf" or "smurfscrew".

** As a whole, this was parodying the language divide issues in Belgium.

* During his [[Not So Different]] rant in ''[[The Killing Joke]]'', the Joker remarks that the last world war was caused by a dispute over how many telegraph poles Germany owed as war reparations. Which, true or not, he evidently finds hilarious.

* In the ''[[Civilization III]]'' fanfiction ''Vegetarian Vengeance'', the Indians end up going to war with Rome over ''the contents of Caesar's sandwich!''

* The [[The Golden Age of Animation|1939]] [[Fleischer Studios]] animated adaptation of ''[[Max Fleischer's Gulliver's Travels|Gulliver's Travels]]'', the holy war over egg ends was changed to a fight over which sappy love song should be played at the wedding of the Prince of Blefescu and Princess of Lilliput: "Faithful" or "Forever". In theory, this is supposed to have been a nod to the satirical tone of the source material, but the film plays it ''completely serious''. {{spoiler|Gulliver suggests that the couple [[Take a Third Option|combine both songs]] to settle the matter, and it works.}}

* [[South Park]] [[The Movie]] has them go to war with Canada because they didn't want to take responsibility for letting their kids see a movie.

* In ''RRRrrrr!!!'', two prehistoric tribes are at war because one has shampoo and the others are trying to get the formula/a sample.

* In ''[[Duck Soup]]'', a devastating war between two countries begins because of Rufus T. Firefly ([[Marx Brothers|Groucho Marx]]) taking offense at getting called an "upstart". Rather a ''[[Berserk Button]]'', wouldn't you say?

* ''[[Gory Deadly Overkill Title of Fatal Death|Piranha Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death]]'' is about two [[Straw Feminist|feminist]] [[Amazon Brigade|tribes]] who have fallen out over whether [[Gendercide|men should]] [[Cannibal Tribe|be eaten]] with guacamole dip, or with clam dip.

* In ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'', the Lilliputians fought a long war over which end of a boiled egg should be broken (the Big-Endians and the Little-Endians). This was a metaphor for the contemporary conflicts over the eucharist, specifically the belief and disbelief in transubstantiation.

** An even sillier example occurs in an [[Animated Adaptation]], where Princess Glory of Lilliput and Prince David of Blefuscu are engaged to marry, but their fathers get into an argument over which nation's anthem is to be played at the wedding, which quickly degenerates into open hostilities and a declaration of war. Even worse, when King Bombo is about to leave in a huff, he starts to have second thoughts and decides to apologize, but when Gabby rushes in to warn everyone of the "giant on the beach!" he knocks Bombo over, and the angry king changes his mind again. This in turn makes the unfortunate David and Glory into [[Star-Crossed Lovers]] for most of the movie.

** In [[Real Life]], ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20130917180007/http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~magi/personal/humour/Shaggy_Dog/On%20Holy%20Wars%20and%20a%20Plea%20for%20Peace.html On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace]'' is a famous essay by Danny Cohen on whether data should be transmitted from the most-significant bit to the least-significant bit or vice versa. It draws heavily on ''Gulliver's Travels'' down to the names for the sides: Big-Endian (most significant first) and Little-Endian (least significant first). To this day, those are the "official" names of those groups.

** A similar but less violent Seuss story is ''[[The Sneetches]]'', in which the presence of a star on their bellies is used as a sign of racial superiority by the titular Sneetches until Sylvester McMonkey McBean shows up with a contraption that applies (or removes) stars, all for a modest payment. In the end, he has all their money, and the hopelessly confused Sneetches get the [[Aesop]].

** And ''The Zax'', in which a North-Going Zax and a South-Going Zax happen to meet face-to-face, and they both refuse to budge "an inch to the east, nor an inch to the west" to let the other pass. Like ''The Butter Battle Book'', it just ends with them at an impasse. Dr. Seuss ''loved'' this trope.

* These are the kinds of wars [[Jidai Geki]] Japan is presented as waging in one ''[[Where's Waldo?]]'' where Waldo is wandering around various eras of history.

* Hari Seldon from Isaac Asimov's ''[[Foundation]]'' prequels once mentions a youth subculture conflict on his home planet between people who shave the left side of their head and those who shave the right side.

* The ''[[Ravenloft]]'' novel ''Carnival of Fear'' was set in a country where criminals were transformed into circus freaks and mind-wiped, then gleefully mocked and abused by the ordinary citizens. Hating the odd-looking became so essential to their mindset that, when the Carnival's performers learned the truth and fled the region, the remaining citizens turned on one another: in the epilogue, a gang of children are seen throwing stuff at another boy because his ''eye color'' is different from theirs.

* In ''[[Welkin Weasels]]'', the protagonists come across an island that is home to a pair of dodo tribes. They apparently hate each other because of the color of their eyes, and over ownership of a bunch of little models made of fish bones. Apparently, whenever they go to steal the other tribe's, the other tribe gets the same idea and they're back where they started. They manage to solve this by the protagonists having them burn all of the models. It doesn't really work, though, as the chieftain of the tribe they first met recommended that the group leave before the darts started flying.

* Donald Westlake's short story "Don't You Know There's a War On?" had an exploratory starship touch down on a [[Lost Colony]] that'd been fighting a [[Civil War]] for '''400 years''' over a paradox propounded by humorist Robert Benchley: "There are two kinds of people in the world -- those who believe there are two kinds of people and those who don't." As one of the starship's crew points out, whether you agree or disagree with his paradox, you prove Benchley correct.

* Rather than hold elections or have kings, the Drazi in ''[[Babylon 5]]'' randomly divide their population between "green and purple" scarf wearers, fight non-lethally, and the side with [[Asskicking Equals Authority|most victories got to rule]] for the next year. This causes all manner of problems on Babylon 5 when the faction war breaks out on the station in the vicinity of non-Drazi, especially when the greens decide that the 'non-lethal' part of the rules can be glossed over in the interest of victory.

* On ''[[Red Dwarf]]'', Cat's people wiped themselves out fighting a war over what color the hats at Lister's hot dog stand were supposed to be. What's particularly sad is [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog|that neither side got it right]].

* Averted in ''[[The West Wing]]'' as Kate Harper finds a way to defuse the situation, but the buildup of tensions after Canadian ranchers take American hunters hostage leads to a rather amusing B-story.

* In [[The Bible]]'s [[Book of Judges]], Samson killed a thousand men ([[With This Herring|with a]] [[Improbable Weapon User|donkey's jawbone]]), burned down the Philistines' granaries and vineyards, and humiliated their gods, and for what? His wife was given to Samson's companion by her father, a Philistine.

* [[Homer]]'s ''Iliad''. Yes, a ten-year siege over a jilted husband. No-one questions this enough to stop fighting in the original, but commentary from [[Euripides]] onwards pulled the thread of that logic, e.g.:

* In the Armenian legend "[[Ara the Handsome]]", Queen Semiramis of Assyria goes to war with Armenia because King Ara refused to marry her (besides being politically advantageous, Ara was, [[Captain Obvious|as you might have guessed]], [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|handsome]]), so she wanted him [[I Want Them Alive|brought back to her alive.]]

* Orcs/Orks in ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' and ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' don't ''need'' any reason to kill their enemies (or each other), but they'll take any opportunity at justification in order to do so. For example, there's two Orkish gods, Gork and Mork, one being the god of cunning brutality and the other of brutal cunning. If given the chance, Orks will fight over ''which is which''.

** This specific schism was used in the late 90s spin-off game ''Gorkamorka'' in which a load of Orks stranded on a planet got into a civil war over whether the space hulk they were (kind of) trying to rebuild to escape was Gork or Mork - in the ensuing conflict, the hulk was destroyed, but they continued to nominally work on it afterwards anyway, and still remained divided between "Gorkers" and "Morkers". This would be a [[Downer Ending]] in any other universe - here, it just kind of makes sense.

* Any given Beholder in ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' is engaged in a never-ending race war against any Beholders not of its breed, killing them on sight. While there are some varieties that are vastly different in terms of appearance and philosophy, they will fight over any difference at all, even ones that anyone other than a beholder would never notice. Of course, there is the true Beholder, whose form would clearly be the correct form for a beholder to have. Unfortunately, whenever any beholder sees it the thing looks exactly like them.

* ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'': "The War of Ignition was waged by The Imperial Fells on The Council of Lances. One of the most significant causes of the conflict was a dispute over the treatment of plants."

** This is often the main cause of war between the elves and anyone else. Unless the anyone else involved is controlled by the player, in which case odds are that the war started because the player decided that the best economic resource to trade to the elven emissaries was MAGMA.

* In ''[[Splatoon]]'', the conflict between the Inklings and the Octarians was, originally, not very silly - conflict over land, hunting grounds, resources, and all that stuff. In modern times, however, their fierce rivalries tend to be over minor things like fashion choices and food preferences. {{spoiler| It takes [[Big Bad| a common enemy]] [[Villain Has A Point| calling them out]] over such absurd reasons for fighting [[Omnicidal Maniac| (while threatening to annihilate both races)]] to make them realize it and reconcile.}}

* The entire conflict in ''[[Red vs. Blue]]''. This is a rare example where those involved in the conflict are fully aware of how silly it is (except for [[The Neidermeyer|Sarge]] and [[The Ditz|Caboose]]).

* ''[[The Perry Bible Fellowship]]'': the "[http://www.pbfcomics.com/20/ pro-Skub vs. anti-Skub]" comic, which became a minor meme.

* Invoked on the first page of ''[[Gone With the Blastwave]]'', as part of establishing the setting. The protagonists are fighting a war. But all the land is ruined, money is useless since there's nothing left to spend it on, and it's not about religion... so, why do they fight? {{spoiler|To win the war.}}

* ''[[Pearls Before Swine]]'' has [http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2009/11/12 Underers vs. Overers]".

* ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' has an undescribed example [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IHCB6FmLiY here], thanks to a troper who thought a bare YouTube link was sufficient.

* In an episode of ''[[The Wild Thornberrys]]'', Eliza and Darwin end up on opposite sides of a war between two groups of monkeys who fight each other because one troop has stubby tails and the other has long tails. They attempt to reason with them, and finally Eliza gets them to see eye to eye when she makes them armor out of coconuts, which means they don't figure out who is on which side until after they fight.

** Plus the otters {{spoiler|felt that eating off of tables was stupid when you had nice furry bellies.}}

* In the 1939 MGM short ''Peace on Earth'', the warring factions includes the meat eaters fighting vegetarians, and flat-footed people fighting buck-tooth people.

* ''[[Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures]]'': The episode about the Jersey Devil has the Quest team encounter two families who are descendants of the Redcoats and Minutemen and fighting over possession of the original Declaration of Independence. Dr. Quest resolves the conflict by explaining that they've lived in the deep woods so long they don't realize the Revolutionary War has ended ~200 years prior and they agree to live peacefully with each-other.

* Note: While many of these wars were ''caused'' by ridiculous things, they are often the culmination of larger tensions between two enemy states that may go back for generations.

* The [[Meaningful Name|Pastry War]] of 1838. A Franco-Mexican war that expanded to include Great Britain and United States. During the course of the conflict, France captured almost the entire Mexican fleet, the Republic of Texas moved further into the orbit of the USA, and former Mexican dictator Santa Anna was wounded in a clash with Mexican soldiers, paving the way for him to return to power. In the end, the British intervened and forced Mexico to pay France the 600'000 pesos compensation that France had demanded in the first place. Compensation for what, you may ask? The property of a French baker in Mexico having been damaged by Mexican army officers, ''10 years previously''.