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{{trope}}
{{quote|'''King Ferdinand:''' But you better sight land soon. There's rumblings of mutiny!<br />
'''Christopher Columbus:''' Really?<br />
'''King Ferdinand:''' Come over here and listen.<br />
'''Christopher Columbus:''' All right.<br />
'''Crew:''' Rumble, rumble, rumble! Mutiny, mutiny, mutiny!|'''[[Stan Freberg]]''', ''The United States of America: The Early Years''}}
|'''[[Stan Freberg]]''', ''The United States of America: The Early Years''}}
 
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.
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Militarily speaking, a mutiny is the military form of sedition, a conspiracy to disobey a superior officer whose orders one is legally bound to obey. But in popular fiction, particularly [[Pirate]] stories, the term is mainly used for the rebellion of members of the crew against the captain or other person in charge of a ship, either at sea or in space. Just like rebellions on land, a mutiny may or may not be justified, though it's worth telling that mutinies are far less likely to be justified than regular rebellions. In many stories (and in real life) the penalty for mutiny is usually death, so many mutineers do not live long if they fail.
 
It's not always illegal. If the commanding officer's actions are illegal, immoral, or are themselves contrary to higher orders, his ranking underling can take action to "relieve him of command," usually using those exact words. [[Rebellious Rebel|Of course, the captain will still think it's mutiny.]] The junior officer ''will'', of course, be expected to justify his actions before a full inquiry, military tribunal, court martial, or other group of stern old officers in the [[Denouement]]. When [[The Captain]] is the one who is technically disobeying orders from a [[Authority Equals Asskicking|higher power]], it's an [[Anti -Mutiny]].
 
As you might expect, mutinies are a case of [[Truth in Television]], and there are many cases throughout history of mutinies happening not only on board ships, but on land as well.
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Fictionally, [[Pirate]] ships may face mutinies that are treated just as seriously as those on other ships. In [[Real Life]], pirates set up their ships so they could depose a captain as they pleased.
 
When the commanding officer does something illegal with the ship, [[I Take Offense to That Last One|that's not mutiny]], that's [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Barratry_:Barratry (admiralty_law)admiralty law)|barratry]].
----
'''Examples:'''
 
{{examples}}
== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[Mutiny Onon 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''.
** The descendants of some of the mutineers still live on the island they sailed to.
** William Bligh probably had something conducive to the mutiny about him. 19 years later, when he was the Governor of the New South Wales, he had ''another'' mutiny — the famous [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_rebellion:Rum rebellion|Rum Rebellion]].
* ''[[The Caine Mutiny]]'', and the book of the same name by Herman Wouk on which the movie was based, concerns a mutiny aboard a WWII destroyer against a captain accused of cowardice and incompetence.
* ''[[Crimson Tide]]'' had a mutiny aboard a submarine during rising tensions between the United States and Russia that were set to go nuclear. Tricky, in that none of the participants are sure who the mutineer actually is, as both sides claim legitimate authority within the Articles of War governing the United States Navy.
** Oh, that's easy. The XO's the Mutineer, [[Overused Running Gag|the Captain's a Barrator]].
* ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'', a few times, notably The Black Pearl taken from Jack in the backstory.
* ''[[Battleship Potemkin]]''. [[Truth in Television]] and a cinematic masterpiece.
* Kirk skirts this line over and over again in the new ''[[Star Trek (Filmfilm)|Star Trek]]'' reboot.
* ''[[HMS Defiant]]'' placed in the time of Spithead mutiny, the crew plans it from the beginning, and Dirk Bogarde's super-evil, sadistic first lieutenant gives them pretty good reason to do it.
* ''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.
* ''[[Space Mutiny]]'' features [[The Mutiny]]... <small>IN SPACE</small>! [[Shaped Like Itself|I]] [[Captain Obvious|totally]] [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|swear]]
 
== [[Literature]] ==
* Very commonly found in Napoleonic naval fiction. Occurs in the first Richard Bolitho novel, and in ''Lord [[Hornblower]].''
* ''[[Treasure Island]]'', Captain Flint's crew, under Long John Silver, rebelled in the backstory. They took over the Hispanola in the main story -- althoughstory—although, this one was planned from the beginning, more accurately an infiltration than a mutiny.
* 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''.
* In [[James Swallow]]'s [[Warhammer 4000040,000]] [[Horus Heresy]] novel ''The Flight of the Eisenstein'', the captain of the Eisenstein is told that what he is doing is mutiny. He retorts that mutiny is when the crew revolts against the captain; when a captain disobeys the commander of the fleet, it's barratry. He still, [[Rebellious Rebel|in defiance of orders]], flees in order to [[Bring News Back]] of Horus's treachery.
* ''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.
* [[Complete Monster]] First Mate Cox leads a mutiny on the ''Sweet Judy'' in the backstory of ''[[Nation]]''. It fails when the captain realizes that [[If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him]], and the mutineers are set adrift--leavingadrift—leaving the ''Judy'' undermanned in the tsunami that sets off the plot of the book proper.
* 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.
 
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* In the pilot of ''[[Sea QuestSeaQuest DSV]]'', Commander Ford relieves Captain Stark of duty as she's about to launch a nuclear strike without just cause.
* Nearly happened a couple times during the second season of ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'', since a good number of the crewmembers were [[Enemy Mine|pulled from a crew that actively resisted Federation policies]]. Tuvok leads a mutiny thanks to brainwashing he received from a [[The Remnant|fanatical Maquis holdout]]. Unrelatedly, couple seasons later Tuvok revealed that he had been preparing to counter a full-scale mutiny from day one.
* ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]''. In "Hatchery" Archer becomes obsessed with protecting a Xindi insectoid hatchery at the expense of their mission to save Earth. The by-the-book MACO's follow the Captain's orders, and the crew who've been together long enough to realize Archer is acting strangely, and now have the self-confidence to do something about it, try to apprehend and find out what is wrong with him.
* Commander Riker of ''[[Star Trek: theThe Next Generation]]'' took his captain's side in a mutiny very early in his career; he later decided that had been [[Broken Pedestal|the wrong call]].
** 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 YoudownYou Down|leave him to die]].
{{quote| Picard: You know this is mutiny.}}
* ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined (2004 TV series)|The rebooted ''Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'']]. With the support of Vice-President Zarek, Lt. Gaeta leads a full-scale armed mutiny against Admiral Adama and President Roslin.
* In ''[[Star Trek: theThe Original Series]]'', there was an interesting case in the episode "[[Star Trek (Franchise)/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.
** Spock mutinies in [[Star Trek: theThe Original Series]] episode ''The Menagerie''.
* An episode of ''[[JAG]]'', "''Cowboys and Cossacks''", plays with both this trope, and the ''[[Hunt for Red October]]'' [[Insistent Terminology|Barratry gag]], when Harm and Bud, while guests aboard a Russian sub, conspire with one of the Russian officers to take the ship from the [[Renegade Russian|renegade Captain]]. Harm explains to Bud that what they are doing can ''not'' be legally defined as mutiny. Technically, it's an ''act of terrorism.''
 
== [[Music]] ==
* [[Running Wild (Musicband)|Running Wild]] song "Mutiny" on the album ''Port Royal''.
* [[Alestorm]]'s "Captain Morgan's Revenge" kicks off with a mutiny that ends with the pirates making the title captain [[Walk the Plank]], only for him to pronounce a dying curse upon them all...
 
== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Suikoden IV]]'': [[White -Haired Pretty Boy|Snowe]] [[UpperclassUpper Class Twit|Vingerhut]] finds himself on the bad end of one when he [[Minor Injury Overreaction|cracks under the pressure of leadership]]. But then, what can you expect when you're only in charge of a crew of much more experienced soldiers thanks to [["Well Done, Son" Guy|daddy's influence]]?
* In ''[[The Secret of Monkey Island]]'', Guybrush's crew end up turning on him as soon as they set sail for the titular island. It works out in the end, though.
** And in ''[[The Curse of Monkey Island (Video Game)|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."}}
* ''[[Allegiance]]'', a team-based multiplayer [[Simulation Game|Space Sim]] / [[Real Time Strategy]] hybrid, has [[The Mutiny]] as part of its gameplay mechanics. One player on each team fills the role of a commander, taking care of most of the RTS-level elements of the game -- buildinggame—building bases, investing in [[Tech Tree|research]], and managing the big picture of the battle. At any time, any other member of the team can propose a mutiny, at which point everyone on the team gets a vote -- andvote—and if the mutiny passes, that player takes over. This doesn't happen too often, but will happen to commanders who make egregious mistakes, especially if they behave arrogantly or harshly towards the rest of their team despite their own obvious flaws. (Competent commanders can usually get away with it, though...)
* 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 MeiersMeier'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).
* ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'': After a failed attempt to assassinate Edea, the ''real'' boss of Balamb Garden, NORG, decided to offer the head of the involved ![[SEE Ds]] (your party, that is) to her on a silver plate to save his own arse. [[Anti -Mutiny|Cid doesn't take this well, and decided that he's through with this greedy bastard]]. A Garden-wide armed conflict ensues between NORG's goons and students loyal to Cid.
 
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Gloog briefly attempts this in ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20090925111512/http://www.agameoffools.com/comic_57.html A Game of Fools]''.
* The current chapter of ''[[Two KindsTwokinds]]''.
* 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.
** Barry tries to repeatedly [[Chekhov's Boomerang|regain the ship]] this way too. It only worked if Walter didn't keep a [[Tastes Like Friendship|full stock of rum]] to maintain loyalty.
** Later, [[The Smart Girl|Sal]] manages to settle the issue [[Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies|permanently]] with fresh recruits.
 
== [[Web Original]] ==
* In ''[[Pay Me, Bug (Literature)|Pay Me Bug!]]'', {{spoiler|Velis Enge}} organizes a mutiny against Captain Vindh.
 
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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** Whaddaya mean several? The first couple times he takes over the fleet is because Winfield's incapacitated. Although, he did try [[The Hero]] JT Marsh for mutiny after Marsh tried to prevent him for doing something intensely stupid.
** Marcus takes command of the Exofleet exactly 2 times. The first time is because Winfield is injured during a battle with the pirates, not mutiny. The second time Marcus DID mutiny and it ended as bad as a mutiny possible could.
* ''[[The Simpsons (Animationanimation)|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.
 
== [[Real Life]] ==
* One of the most curious mutinies was the Spithead mutiny. The Royal Navy in the Channel suspended operations because of internal grievances. In this case the mutineers were patriotic Englishmen and careful of public opinion. Because of this they limited their demands to such things as a raise in pay and removal of unpopular officers. They did not even demand abolition of flogging either because they did not wish to press their luck or because they had their own reasons for wishing harsh treatment on [[Army of Thieves and Whores|some of the crew.]] And they agreed to call off the mutiny if the French interrupted negotiations. Some have compared the episode to a labor strike rather than a mutiny as we normally think of.
 
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Narrative Devices]]
[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]
[[Category:Dragon Head (Manga)]]▼
[[Category:Example As a Thesis]]
[[Category:Betrayal Tropes]]
[[Category:TheExample Mutinyas a Thesis]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mutiny, The}}
[[Category:Trope]]
▲[[Category:Dragon Head (Manga){{PAGENAME}}]]
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