The Mutiny: Difference between revisions

'''King Ferdinand:''' Come over here and listen.

'''Christopher Columbus:''' All right.

 

Here's the situation: you're on a ship. [[The Captain]] is supposed to be the commanding officer on the ship, and his word is supposed to be law. But sometimes, members of the crew don't see it that way. Maybe someone gets it in his head to become captain himself, and the current captain needs to go. Maybe the captain is a bit too tyrannical or soft for the crew's liking, or they think the captain has lost his mind and is leading them on a suicidal course, and the crew would rather go back to Tahiti. Whatever the reason, someone gets the bright idea to take up arms against the captain and before you know it, we've got a mutiny on our hands.

 

When the commanding officer does something illegal with the ship, [[I Take Offense to That Last One|that's not mutiny]], that's [[wikipedia:Barratry (admiralty law)|barratry]].

 

== [[Film]] ==

* ''[[Mutiny on the Bounty]]'' is a fictional recounting of the mutiny that went down aboard the HMS Bounty in 1789. Committed to film in 1934, 1962, and in 1984 as ''The Bounty''.

* ''Son of Kong'' crew stages a mutiny because they don't want to go back to Skull Island. Egged on by the villain of the film, but then they throw him overboard too.

* ''Retrograde'': A group of men are sent 100 years back in time to prevent a meteor carrying a deadly alien virus from colliding into Earth and bring humanity to the brink of extinction. However, during the mission, one of the commandos, Dalton, tries to take over the ship and kill the other crew so that he can change the past and remake the future in his own image.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* Very commonly found in Napoleonic naval fiction. Occurs in the first Richard Bolitho novel, and in ''Lord [[Hornblower]].''

* In F.M. Busby's ''Rissa Kerguelen'' series, spaceship crews sometimes mutiny in order to get free of their totalitarian government; we see two of these mutinies in the books.

* As [[Tom Clancy]] points out in the novel, not ''[[The Hunt for Red October]]''. That's barratry.

* ''[[The Lost Fleet]]'' has the [[Glory Hound]] Captain Falco lead a mutiny against the Alliance fleet commander John Geary, whom he thinks is a coward. He takes off with 40 ships to break through the enemy forces. He comes back with ''thirteen''.

* ''The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle'', by Avi, is a young adult novel about a mutiny on a ship where the protagonist ends up joining the mutineers.

* A mutiny was what contributed to the conditions on the [[Generation Ship]] of [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Orphans Of The Sky]]'' (originally two short stories, "Universe" and "Common Sense"), during which the ship's piloting crew was killed off, the survivors later forgetting their original purpose.

* In ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'', a group of Night's Watch brothers, after surviving a large-scale attack by the undead Others, take shelter in a small keep owned by Craster, a sometimes friend of the Watch. During their stay, Craster mocks the Brothers and feeds them only meager rations, claiming that it is all he can afford to give. Several of the watchmen, half-starved and nearly crazed from the battle and subsequent retreat, accuse him of holding out on them, claiming that he must have ample stores for the coming winter to supply himself and his many wives. Lord Commander Mormont tries to put an end to their belligerence but is cut down by his own men, who proceed to murder Craster, raid his stores, and rape his women. Only [[Dirty Coward|Samwell]] holds back, fleeing the keep before the traitors recover themselves to bring word back to Castle Black about the Lord Commander's death.

* The [[Tarzan]] story opens with a mutiny. The crew of the Arrow rise up, kill the brutal officers and steal the ship. Because Lord Greystoke had been kind to the leader of the mutiny during the voyage, he and his pregnant wife are put ashore on a remote stretch of the African coast rather than being killed.

 

** Lampshaded in ''Disaster'' by Picard when three children he has [[Field Promotion|made "officers"]] [[No One Gets Left Behind|disobey]] his order to [[I Will Only Slow You Down|leave him to die]].

{{quote|Picard: You know this is mutiny.}}

* In ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'', there was an interesting case in the episode "[[Star Trek/Recap/S3/E24 Turnabout Intruder|Turnabout Intruder]]", where Kirk had switched bodies with his jealous, insane ex-lover, who wanted to be captain. The rest of the crew became suspicious of their captain's irrational behaviour. However all medical tests showed that Kirk was perfectly fine and even when Scotty suggested that they mutiny, McCoy pointed out the medical report was all that Starfleet would accept and they would be the ones who irrationally mutiny against their captain.

** Apparently illegally ordered executions don't qualify under Starfleet regs.

** And in ''[[The Curse of Monkey Island]]'', the crew mutinies after they shipwreck on Blood Island, because they wish to return to their occupation as a [[Barbershop Quartet]].

{{quote|"We be hearing the call of the sirens. She be wanting us to wash her hair."}}

* In ''[[Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker]]'', the War Room erupted into this after the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff attempted to call off the Nuclear Strike after he learned from Big Boss that the missile data was fake.

* In ''[[Sid Meier's Pirates!]]!'', you take command of your first ship (at 18!) as the result of a mutiny. Also, while you're commanding your fleet, if you have too many pirates and too little gold, the crew will become upset after a time and mutiny. Also if you run out of food. Or try to sail for too long without dividing the loot from the expedition. However, the mathematics for happiness work in your favor here: if you have enough gold in the hold to ensure 1000 gold per person minimum (after your cut), the crew will never get upset about the amount of time you spend sailing, and you can keep the expedition alive indefinitely (though the risk of losing it all in a bad engagement is ''very'' real, as your crew is likely relatively small).

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* The current chapter of ''[[Twokinds]]''.

* In ''[[Dubious Company]]'', after [[Beauty, Brains, and Brawn|Elly, Walter, and Tiren]] escape the brig, Walter convinces [[Heel Face Revolving Door|the crew]] to do this to Captain Barry.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'': Homer unintentionally mutinied against the Naval Captain while part of a Naval Reserve Sub Crew (It makes sense in context). The captain had to clean out a bunch of items (specifically contraband junk food that was implied to have been belonging to Homer.) and promoted Homer to captain in his stead. However, shortly afterwards, the sub Homer was on was about to collide with another submarine (which Moe claimed was an enemy sub). Homer, when wondering what his captain said, decided on saying fire the torpedo. Unfortunately, he forgot that his captain was still in the torpedo tube, and... well... he was fired into the enemy sub, comically making an impression on the enemy sub. Similarly, the enemy sub also considered using their officer to do so (although only because of a poor choice of words on the officer's part), but stopped when he explains he meant fire a real torpedo.

** Homer then commits treason and nearly starts a world war. Par for the course.

 

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[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]

[[Category:Betrayal Tropes]]

[[Category:Example as a Thesis]]