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We Have Reserves: Difference between revisions
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Callousness is necessary for it to be a suitable [[Kick the Dog]] moment. A general who throws troops into a battle knowing they will all die but knowing a victory here will save more lives can be pardoned of it [[Trial by Friendly Fire|if he shows that he is aware of the cost]]. ([[Drowning My Sorrows]] and [[Bad Dreams]] are popular tropes for demonstrating that awareness.) The same thing applies for a commander of a stricken vessel who sometimes must seal off sections of a ship and doom the crew inside lest the entire ship is lost. An [[Ensign Newbie|inexperienced officer]] who inadvertently does this may only be a moron or having a moment of panic while in command for the first time, and might still be redeemable if shows [[Character Development]] because of it or improves his tactics.
Compare [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness]] and [[You Have Failed Me...]] for similar moments from a [[Bad Boss]]. [[Shoot the Messenger]] and [[Even Mooks Have Loved Ones]] also rely on the [[Big Bad]] feeling that his mooks are completely expendable. Also compare [[The Neidermeyer]] and [[Zerg Rush]]. [[A Father to His Men]] is the opposite character type. Contrast [[Expendable Clone]], where a character is ''his own reserves.''
{{examples}}
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* [[Mad Bomber]] Kimblee of ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (anime)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' turns fellow soldiers into living bombs in the anime and indiscriminately used one as a human shield in the manga.
** In the manga, Amestris' entire philosophy during the Ishval Civil War was this. Naturally, the soldiers like Maes Hughes did not take kindly to this, and Amestris officers were frequently shot by their own men. {{spoiler|This was, however, less a matter of callousness but a deliberate attempt to kill as many people as possible on both sides.}}
* In ''[[Naruto]]'', Orochimaru {{spoiler|kills the squad of teenage ninja (minus Dosu, who was already dead) he had infiltrating the chuunin exams in order to [[Equivalent Exchange|use their lives]] to [[Back
* In the anime ''[[
** The fact that they're ''children'' makes the use of this trope even more effective than usual at establishing its user as a [[Complete Monster]].
* In ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]: [[Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team]]'', a Federation commander starts what turns into a string of [[Kick the Dog]] moments when he deliberately marches mobile suit teams into traps in an attempt to cause a nuclear blast when their reactors go off, destroying or at least uncovering the Zeon base hidden in a mountain.
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* Used in ''[[World War Z]]'' by both the Russian and Chinese armies, often to horrifying effects. If one didn't know that both those countries have a history of such tactics, (see the real life section below) they might think Max Brooks was making it up or had an ax to grind with those countries.
** The primary problem with using this strategy on zombies is that they use the exact same tactics by instinct, and they recruit by killing. So by sending your own people to die, you inflate the ranks of your enemies. [[Sarcasm Mode|Nice.]]
* In [[James Swallow]]'s [[Warhammer
** In ''Deus Sanguinius'', the Warmaster points out that he sacrificed them for this. He gets no sympathy.
* The [[Big Bad]] in any [[David Eddings]] series will inevitably have this mindset. In the backstory of ''[[The Belgariad]]'', the Dark God Torak marched millions of Angaraks off to the West in a suicidally insane war that left not one survivor to return to the East. In ''[[The Malloreon]]'', his successor as Child of Dark, Zandramas, similarly views her minions as utterly expendable, sending them to certain death against the heroes multiple times simply to slow them down, or on the off chance that one of them will get lucky and prevent her from having to see the Prophecy to its conclusion. And of course, the demons in that series behave this way with respect to the human troops under their "command", force marching them for days without a care for the death and suffering—or rather, reveling in it.
* Emperor Ezar Vorbarra in the ''[[Vorkosigan Saga]]'' has this mindset and takes this trope a step further - he has the army mount a hopeless, bloody attack on another planet in order to get his [[Complete Monster|insane son]] killed off without anyone suspecting assassination. Too bad about all the ''other'' soldiers who were killed ...
* An interesting example from [[Iain M Banks]]' ''[[The Culture/The Player of Games|The Culture]]:'' the protagonist is freaked out when he realizes how much the Emperor personifies this trope, even though the reserves he so casually sacrifices aren't people but pieces in a very elaborate game. The reason he is freaked out is that the game is expressly designed to mirror the player's values and philosophy—meaning that the superficially charming and civilized Emperor has revealed himself as [[Ax Crazy]].
* In [[Ben Counter]]'s [[Warhammer
* Empress Jadis in ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia|The Magician's Nephew]]'' brags that she "poured out the blood of her armies like water" in the civil war with her sister for control of Charn. And then trumped that by speaking the Deplorable Word, an unspecified spell which destroyed Charn and killed everything on it except herself.
* [[Subverted Trope]] in the ''[[Dune|Legends of Dune]]'' trilogy, where [[
** On the other hand, the [[Church Militant|Butlerian Jihad]] forces will not hesitate to lose hundreds of lives to destroy several machines, as exemplified by the takedown of the [[Humongous Mecha]] Ajax by hundreds of angry slaves armed with primitive rocket launchers and even more primitive ''clubs''.
* [[The Draka]] use their slave soldiers (called "janissaries" in reference to the Ottoman military units) in attrition situations that their [[Super Soldier|elite shock troop Citizen army]] cannot finesse, thereby saving the much more precious lives of the [[Master Race]]. A Draka officer is reprimanded at one point for showing ''too much'' concern for the lives of his janissaries. Eventually the Draka [[Evilutionary Biologist|engineer]] aggressiveness out of their slaves, and the janissaries are replaced by the [[Mix-and-Match Critters|part-baboon, part-dog, part-human]] [[Petting Zoo People|ghouloons]] who serve much the same purpose.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* The Imperial Guard of ''[[Warhammer
{{quote|"Do you want to take that point? I mean, REALLY take that point? Seriously, how many dudes do you want to throw at that point? Chenkov can throw that many guys at the point, AND MORE."}}
** Also, the Orks of ''[[Warhammer
*** Gretchin are considered even more expendable than Orks. One noted use for Gretchin mobz in past editions was removing minefields in much the same way as a stick removes a bear trap. If there were more mines than gretchin, they died to no notable effect, generally prompting loud bursts of Orkish laughter.
*** The Gretchin have several other [[Sarcasm Mode|great]] jobs, such as being stepping stones in rough terrain, bullet shields, and EMERGENCY RATIONS
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* Orcs and Goblins in [[Warhammer Fantasy]]. Green life is cheap.
** As is that of the Bretonnian peasants. Fortunately they have longbows and can kill at distance and run away should things get queasy.
* Kobolds in ''[[Dungeons
** This is expanded upon in the sourcebook ''Races of the Dragon''—Kobolds [[Obfuscating Stupidity|intentionally cultivate]] the opinion that they are weak and pathetic so that people will leave them alone or otherwise underestimate them, but at the same time, an individual kobold's outlook on life is that it doesn't matter if ''he'' dies, as long as ''his city'' survives. This pseudo-communist outlook covers all of kobold society from the top down, and influences kobold city defense—the older (and thus, not as likely to breed) kobolds will happily throw themselves en masse at an enemy to give the rest of the city enough time to escape.
** Goblins are likewise content to get mowed down en masse because they breed even faster than kobolds. Orcs do it too, but mainly just 'cause they're dumb, overconfident, and have no sense of tactics.
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*** It should be noted however that there are a lot of area attacks in 4E that ONLY target enemies. Chilling Cloud for example allows Wizards to target enemies in melee without risking damaging their allies. Invokers, Divine Controlers, specialize in these sort of 'party safe' spells and can benifit greatly from Coordinated Fire without invoking this trope.
* The Cheiron Group in ''[[Hunter: The Vigil]]'' hire people to go capture supernatural creatures for experimentation... with their only preparations being a book filled with half-truths and outright fables. Hey, with the way the job market is, if anyone dies, we can hire new ones!
* YOU, the player, in [[Paranoia]]. Your life in Alpha Complex will inevitably result in you [[Superpower Meltdown|dying in]] [[Unfriendly Fire|a number]] [[Phlebotinum Overload|of horrible]] [[You Have Failed Me...|ways]], but it's okay, because you have plenty of [[Cloning Blues|backups where that came from]].
* [[Eclipse Phase]] may or may not count for this. Given that actually dying isn't that big of a deal, and that a fair amount of character types (robots, nano-swarms, etc) probably couldn't feel pain anyway, there is certainly a healthy disregard for the value of life. Within the fiction of the rule books grazing team mates with plasma rifles to hit the bad guys, sacrificing yourself to buy time, straight up murdering a friend and exploding your head with an anti-matter bomb (all for the sake of the mission) shows up. And that's just in the first short story. Basically, everyone is totally expendable and people dying is an accepted part of the trade and just not a big deal.
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** This trope is pretty much invoked by name in the first level of Red Alert 2's Soviet campaign when you build your first Conscript.
{{quote|'''Lt. Sofiya:''' Pay no heed to casualties Comrade Commander, for every Conscript that dies in this glorious crusade, there are a thousand more eager to replace him.}}
* [[
** The Infected Marines however fit the bill, they are created merely as human bombs to do serious damage to the enemy.
** Starcraft's Terrans - Marines had an average of 2 seconds combat time before death, which was considered totally acceptable until sheer numbers of losses started to cost more to replace them all the time. The use of Medics increased that time to a respectable 5 seconds!
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** The current US casualties list from March 2003 to the time of this typing (September 2009) is 4,334. That's ''over six years.'' Blackwatch figure the Marines will lose that many ''in about three weeks''.
** The Marines [[Throw the Dog a Bone|are thrown a bone]] in the end when they get ''all'' of the credit for saving what's left of Manhattan from the Infection {{spoiler|and a nuke}}.
* [[The Joker]] is very much like this in ''[[Batman: Arkham Asylum]]'', leaving his cohorts in multiple lurches without batting an eyelash, making [[You Have Failed Me...]] comments as they get taken out one-by-one by [[Batman]], and insulting anybody who fails him, including Harley Quinn. [[Mad Love]], indeed.
* This is one of the things that makes the [[Metroid|Space Pirates]] a serious threat. Absolutely everyone is expendable, from mooks to commanders, as long as the goal is accomplished. They will blow up ''entire planets'' just to kill one person, and the troops down there are even ordered to stay so they can ''stall.''
* Notably averted in ''Original War'' from Altar Interactive, a RTS with RPG elements. In the single player game (and multiplayer with the right settings), every person who dies is actually [[Killed Off for Real]]. Each of them has a name, skills and a face. You know them. When any of them dies, it's a loss not just for the war cause (the reinforcements are very limited) but for you as the commander personally. Over the whole storyline - if you let four guys die in the first mission, you are going to have to do without them for the rest of the game. The Russian/Soviet faction in the game employ this trope quite a bit though and the Arabians even more so - even then though, the losses are permanent and the soldiers are not very happy about it.
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