Strongly Worded Letter: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|''"My favourite thing in the Sun, ever, is the Sun's letters page, 'Dear Sun', where you tell Britain what you think. Not just any thought though, like 'move arm now' or 'eat breakfast this morning'- preferably a thought that might inspire some hatred and antipathy towards people that are slightly different."''|'''[[Russell Brand]]''', [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1uhmnNnmL8 here]}}

* Played straight in the early issue of ''[[The Authority]]'' to a villain that has just turned Moscow into a charnel house. The U.N. ups the response by blatantly cough not sending in a kill squad.

* [http://www.punchcartoons.com/images/M/1935.08.14.183.jpg This] ''Punch'' cartoon from 1935, satirising the League of Nations.

{{quote| '''Luigi:''' And you know what we're gonna do, don't you?<br />

'''Mario:''' Write a strongly worded letter to the ''Mushroom Times''...in the morning... }}

'''Hans''': Or else, we will be very, very angry with you. And we will write you a letter, telling you how angry we are! }}

* ''[[A Civil Action]]'' had an unintentional subversion: the movie was about a corporation that polluted and caused illnesses, and the climax was the good lawyer writing a letter.

{{quote| '''Jack:''' I don't know about you, but I intend to go write a strongly worded letter [[Gallows Humor|to the White Star Line]] about all this.}}

* ''[[Casino Royale 1967]]'' has [[Woody Allen]] in Central America, threatening an angry letter to The Times, as he's stood before a firing squad.

== Literature ==

 

{{quote| ''Not for R. P. Tyler the soapbox, the polemic verse, the broadsheet. R. P. Tyler's chosen forum was the letter column of the ''Tadfield Advertiser''. If a neighbour's tree was inconsiderate enough to shed leaves into R. P. Tyler's garden, R. P. Tyler would first carefully sweep them all up, place them in boxes, and leave the boxes outside his neighbour's front door, with a stern note. Then he would write a letter to the ''Tadfield Advertiser''. If he sighted teenagers sitting on the village green, their portable cassette players playing, and they were enjoying themselves, he would take it upon himself to point out to them the error of their ways. And after he had fled their jeering, he would write to the ''Tadfield Advertiser'' on the Decline of Morality and the Youth of Today.''}}

** "Gently Push Over The Forces Of Oppression!" Rincewind gets so frustrated with it that he suggests "Slightly Bad Things Please Happen To Our Enemies!"

** The rest of the novel is actually quite [[Anvilicious]] about what life would be like if likes of "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" weren't writing Strongly Worded Letters but actually running the country, ie [[Crapsack World|completely and utterly FUBAR.]]

* Used very seriously in the ''Adventure of the Second Stain'', where [[Sherlock Holmes]] is tasked by the British PM to recovering such a letter from a foreign spy. Everyone is quite aware of the fact that the letter could very well trigger a war. Considering the time the story was written (1904), such a letter in real life might have plausibly kicked off WWI.

{{quote| '''Wedge''': "I don't like this notion of dovin basal mines that pursue you."<br />

'''Han''': "Me, either. I'm going to draft a strongly worded letter to the Yuuzhan Vong high commander and insist he stop using them." }}

** The second such letter, much more strongly worded and in response to the spoilered out incident, is delivered personally by a Vice Admiral in command of a squadron of battlecruisers. Rather than accept this letter, the Solarian Admiral moves his squadron to engage the smaller Manticoran unit. {{spoiler|After the Admiral's ship is destroyed long before his ships can get close enough to fire at the Manticoran warships, the [[You Are in Command Now|new commander]] of the Solarian squadron chooses to accept the letter}}.

** The ''third'' letter is being delivered by only one destroyer, but after what happened after the delivery of the first letter, and given that the destroyer finds {{spoiler|a ridiculously large fleet of Solarian Super Dreadnoughts they decide [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here|to turn around and go home]] to report what they've found before announcing themselves.}}

* In an episode of ''[[Scrubs]]'', Turk and J.D. believe a nurse has got their patient's file confused with someone else's. J.D. insists on taking the lead in confronting her, and Turk asks if he's going to write one of his strongly worded letters. J.D. replies that he's not, because he doesn't have his thesaurus. It's not clear if Turk realises what a lame response the letter would be, or thinks it's going ''too far''.

* This was a standard response by Sir Humphrey of ''[[Yes Minister]]'' fame to diplomatic niggles, on one occasion saying it had not yet been sent because they had not secured an agreement from the people they were sending it to on how strongly worded it would be.

* In the last series of ''[[A Bit of Fry and Laurie]]'', a very drawn-out version of their typical "vox pops" scenes had a woman played by Laurie threatening to write "a very stiff letter... on cardboard."

** Another sketch involved Laurie's character attempting to convince a psychiatrist played by Fry that he was mad. To Laurie's annoyance, the psychiatrist refuses to believe that he's anything other than eccentric, and he announces that he'll be writing a very stiff letter to the Daily Mail about this. ''That'' gets the psychiatrist's attention.

* In the "Summer" episode of ''[[The Vicar of Dibley]],'' David Horton writes one of these to the water company that is actually not very strong at all. Subverted by {{spoiler|Geraldine's letter, an excerpt of which is "Dear Mr. Useless Babboon's Bottom, It might interest you to know that down our way, you're about as popular as Judas Iscariot at a disciple reunion." It is also implied that she uses the word "dickhead" (or "dick-head, as she's unsure if there's a hyphen.}}

{{quote| '''Iola:''' "And believe you me, they are ''not'' getting the floral stationery!"}}

* A [[Double Subversion]] occurs on ''[[The Golden Girls]]'' when Rose sends a letter to Gorbachev about nuclear disarmament. She actually receives a response from him, saying he would like to hold a press conference with her, but just before the conference starts Rose finds out that Gorbachev thought a little girl wrote the letter.

* Part of the regular [[Self-Deprecation]] on the ''[[The Basil Brush Show]]''.

{{quote| '''Basil''': Our [[No Fourth Wall|veiwers have very active imaginations]]! And colourful language to match. According to the letters we get.}}

* One episode of ''[[The Suite Life of Zack and Cody]]'' has Cody suggesting writing a one of these to the city council in order to prevent a park from being bulldozed.

* In one episode of [[Black Books]], they are building very noisily next door to Bernard's shop and will continue doing so for two weeks, leading to this exchange:

** Which is actually [[Serial Escalation|at the low end of the scale]]. The lore mentions a letter that [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|that made a primordial god have an emotional breakdown that lasted a hundred years,]] completely destroying its ability to take part in the fighting.

** Or Brainwash the reader to the point of [[Mind Rape]].

* In ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'', the Explosive Runes spell is as [[Stuff Blowing Up|strongly-worded as a letter can be]].

 

 

* In ''[[Anachronox]]'', the rulers of Planet Democratus respond this way to an alien invasion.

* This is [[Sam and Max|Sam]]'s reaction to discovering that his office is located a few doors down from the ''gateway to hell''.

{{quote| Our condo association is going to be receiving a letter about ''this''.}}

* Aram in ''[[Men in Hats]]'': [http://www.meninhats.com/d/20030815.html "Don't worry, I'll show him who's boss... THROUGH E-MAIL CORRESPONDENCE!"]

* Completely inverted in the [[Web Comic]] ''[[Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan]]'', where grown men would commit suicide rather than receive a strongly-worded letter from Queen Elspeth.

{{quote| '''President Mancala:''' I'll send you the full report. This kind of opportunistic militarism cannot be tolerated. The United Nations of Sol and allied planetary Governments will not stand idly by while sovereign galactic powers are overthrown, crushed, or assimilated by the Fleetmind.<br />

'''Ambassador Breya:''' What's our plan, Mister President? Do I need to deliver a declaration of war, and then withdraw the embassy?<br />

* The most ''[[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|awesome]]'' possible version of this occurred in ''[[Problem Sleuth]]'', where the titular character uses a [[BFG|mystical automatic rifle]] that [[Good Bad Bugs|turns into a typewriter]] to author a strongly-worded letter to the final boss... [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|and then ''fires'' it out of the gun]] [[For Massive Damage]].

** An [[Chekhov's Gun|"Unpleasant Note"]], to be exact. Complete with grammatical errors, name-calling and a nasty sketch.

* In ''[[Something Positive]]'', after a [[Jerkass|guest on his radio show]] pushes Gaspar's [[Berserk Button]] a couple of times too many (insulting his daughter's heritage and sexuality) he decides to do the worst thing he can think of to the jerk; [http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp01112012.shtml a stern letter].

* In the ''[[Order of the Stick]]'' prequel-book ''Start Of Darkness'', Redcloak vows to fire off one these to the Inter-Humanoid Council after his carefully-planned raid is preempted by some Lizard-people. On-going events ''probably'' cause him to drop the idea, but this ''is'' Redcloak we're talking about here.

 

* Parodied in ''[[Fairly Oddparents]]'', a particularly stupid alien plays this trope, claiming it will write an angry letter. He then proceeds to ask if a [[Incredibly Lame Pun|large red letter Q]] is angry enough.

{{quote| '''Mayor Quimby:''' We are all upset by Mr. Burns' plan to block out our sun. It is time for decisive action! I have here a polite but firm letter to Mr. Burns' underlings who, with some cajoling, will pass it along to him or at least give him the gist of it.}}

** From a later episode, featuring Homer's college nerd friends:

* At one point, Hank of [[King of the Hill]] is charged [[It Makes Sense in Context|a ludicrous amount for a haircut by the US Army]], and gets fed up to the point that he stands and declares that he is going to write to his Congressman. [[What an Idiot!|Naturally, he doesn't even know how to turn on the computer,]] [[Boring but Practical|and writes his letter out by hand.]] Subverted, when it's revealed that the Congressman obviously never even read Hank's letter.

** It is actually a bit of a [[Running Gag]] with Hank, who will usually threaten someone with a letter of dis-satisfactory.

* In one episode of ''[[Buzz Lightyear of Star Command]]'', [[Big Bad|Z]][[Large Ham|u]][[Card-Carrying Villain|r]][[Evil Overlord|g]] attacks the planet of [[Straw Vulcan|Tangea]] and kidnaps their king. The Tangean response? To immediately form a committee to evaluate the situation. The "committee" is later seen preparing a letter to send to Zurg and one of them asks if "displeasure" is too harsh a word.

{{quote| '''Buzz''': Your people really are capable of defending themselves in ways "[[Ironic Echo|my crude mind can't hope to grasp]]".}}

* Very much [[Truth in Television]] in England, the local stereotype being a middle-aged, middle-class, Middle England busybody writing to the editor of the Daily Telegraph, often signing off with something along the lines of [[wikipedia:Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells|"Disgusted, of Tunbridge Wells"]].

** Anthropologist Kate Fox describes English complaints as falling into three mostly ineffectual categories: griping to someone who's in the same boat as you; shouting abusively at someone who isn't really responsible; or going home and writing a [[Strongly Worded Letter]] to whoever's in charge.

** Even more so for ''Daily Mail'' readers (although their online forum has replaced the letters page). The difference being that said letters really ''will'' be strongly worded. Sometimes to the extent of being frighteningly racist and borderline fascist.

** Just as much, if not more so for some left wingers *cough*"Grauniad"*cough* who believe it perfectly acceptable to greet dissent, whether gentle or unjustifiably harsh, with vitriolic accusations that right wingers are being boorish, racist, and vitriolic. No, not hypocritical at all.