The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Difference between revisions

''And if you ask us to do anything,

''We'll just tell you,

 

They don't pillage. They don't plunder. They ''[[Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil|certainly]]'' [[Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil|don't rape]]. They don't invade [[Port Town]]s, kidnap beautiful maidens, battle the Royal Navy on the high seas, [[Digital Piracy Is Evil|broadcast without a license, or swap files on the intertubes]]... [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|and they've never been to Boston in the fall]]. The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, in fact, seem to mostly just drift aimlessly on the high seas, drinking rum and possibly singing sea chanteys. If you ask them, they'll probably just tell you they [[Rule of Cool|like the way it looks on their resume]]. Or maybe they'll just tell you, "We don't do anything."

 

 

This may be because writers and fans are in love with the romanticism implied in a life of adventure and crime, but don't want to actually show the characters doing any of the myriad of things that makes thieves, assassins, mercenaries, [[Bounty Hunter|bounty hunters]], and other unsavory types pariahs in [[Real Life]]. This can result in a strange dissonance where the friendly, [[The Messiah|messianic]] nature of the characters is at odds with the [[Offstage Villainy|openly predatory nature of the professions]] they claim to engage in. May bring [[A Million Is a Statistic]] into play.

** In fact, the series seems to make the point that pirates who do act like pirates are at best [[Jerkass]]es and at worst [[Complete Monster]]s. [[Truth in Television|Just like in real life.]]

** In the manga, it's been explained in ''Romance Dawn, Version 1'' that in ''One Piece'', there are two types of pirates: Morgania, who pillage and plunder, and Peace Main, who hunt the Morgania. Luffy resembles a Peace Main and not one who does nothing at that. The distinction is briefly touched upon near the end of the Kuro arc, in which Luffy complains that Kuro and his men weren't "real" pirates. Nami responds that most pirates are like them, an opinion he is unwilling to accept.

* The Vongola family from ''[[Katekyo Hitman Reborn]]'' have yet to do anything terribly illegal despite being [[The Mafia]]. Even Reborn, the teeny-tiny assassin, never manages to ''kill'' anyone with his array of magic bullets. They do engage in mob wars (mostly in self-defense) later on. This is mainly due to [[Kid Hero|Tsuna]] being a [[Reluctant Warrior|pacifist]] and not ''wanting'' anyone to die. In the past the Vongola were known to be fiercer and much more violent. [[Blood Knight|Xanxus]] and [[Career Killers|the Varia]] live up to this.

* In the ''[[Love Hina]]'' manga, Kitsune claims to be a freelance writer; there's exactly zero evidence to support this. Though it's more socially acceptable to list "writer" instead of "[[Con Artist]]" as your occupation.

** The audiobooks of the Tintin stories explicitly stated they were Tintin writing up the article on them - it always started with Tintin stating his name and credentials, then setting the scene, and from there moves on strictly to dialogue.

** [[The Other Wiki]] notes that Tintin stopped being an investigative reporter about the time the Nazis [[Real Life Writes the Plot|occupied Belgium]].

* ''[[Viz]]'' used to have a strip called "Captain Morgan and his Hammond Organ" about a [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|pirate who sails around playing songs on his Hammond organ]] - and not much else. This is part of the reason why the character was eventually scrapped (along with threatened legal action from the copyright holders of some of the music.)

* The Anarchists from ''[[Persepolis]]'' certainly don't act very anarchist. (Actually, often [[Truth in Television]]. But better than if they had started to throw random bombs like the first anarchists did.)

** In the fourth movie, the only (non-privateer and non-Jack Sparrow) pirates we spend much time with are the crew of ''Queen Anne's Revenge'', who aren't pirating because Blackbeard is too busy looking for the Fountain of Youth to stave off his prophesied death. Considering raids where whole crews were killed are mentioned, though, Blackbeard has definitely ''been'' pirating recently, and probably intended to take it up again after securing immortality.

* The Dread Pirate Roberts in ''[[The Princess Bride (film)|The Princess Bride]]''. Who doesn't raid and plunder other ships. Or spend much time on ships. Or seem to have any crew whatsoever. Or do anything all that dreadful. And isn't even named Roberts. However, there is the strong implication that he did a good deal of pirating off-screen.

* The film version of ''[[Road to Perdition]]'' (not the comic) rarely shows "ruthless gangster" Tom Hanks actually kill anybody onscreen, until the last fifteen minutes of the movie.

** There is the scene in the first act where his [[Obviously Evil]] boss's son kills a man and Tom immediately guns down the man's bodyguards, and only then starts arguing with the son.

* The pirates in Gideon Defoe's ''The Pirates!'' series are a perfect example. In ''An Adventure With Whaling'', they actually realize this—one of the [[Broke Episode|money-making activities]] they try is "actual pirating". Alas, they find it's just not in character for them.

* The characters of ''[[The Three Musketeers (novel)|The Three Musketeers]]'' by [[Alexandre Dumas]] are rarely, if ever, actually depicted as using muskets. Though they do use muskets on the one occasion at which it would be appropriate to, when there's a war on. Using muskets when they're just wandering around Paris causing trouble would be unsporting. Plus the novels are set in the mid-1600s. At that point, muskets were still fairly clumsy, unreliable, inaccurate weapons that were painfully slow to reload; for close combat a sword and/or a brace of pistols were just ''better'' than long guns.

* [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Time Enough for Love]]'' features [[Single-Minded Twins]] [[Theme Twin Naming|Lapis Lazuli Long and Lorelei Lee Long]], who are [[Opposite Gender Clone]]s of the story's protagonist Lazarus Long. As they are unrepentant hellions and true inheritors of their brother's roguish nature, they decide at one point to grow up to become [[Space Pirates]]. In the quasi-sequel ''[[The Number of the Beast]]'', they are introduced in that capacity and share a rotating captaincy of their vessel, with summary authority over "mutineers". However, at no point are they shown to perform any actual piracy, and happily defer to Lazarus in matters of his authority. Toward the end of that novel and into ''[[The Cat Who Walks Through Walls]]'', they meet up with a second set of redheaded twins, male, who join them and reputedly ''do'' inspire them to embark on actual piracy, but again, this takes place entirely offpage and Lazarus appears more or less resigned to whatever fate they bestow upon themselves.

* In pastoral poetry and romances from antiquity to the Renaissance, shepherds and shepherdesses tend to just sit around looking pretty and having [[Love Dodecahedron]]s, mysteriously free from all the hard work (and variable weather conditions) attendant on outdoor animal husbandry. The genre was parodied and criticized for this at least as early as the 17th century.

* Nathan Petrelli of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' is appointed to the U.S. Senate in Season 3. He is never shown voting on any motions, amendments, or bills, attending any committee meetings, meeting with any constituents, or doing anything else that a U.S. Senator's job entails. He is instead able to focus all his time and efforts on running his own personal [[Government Conspiracy]].

* Will from ''[[Glee]]'' is a Spanish teacher who seems to spend very little time teaching Spanish. (Also, the few times he is seen speaking Spanish, his accent is [[Informed Ability|very poor]].) It becomes kind of ridiculous in the first episode of season three, when Sue announces her intention of making sure all the high school arts programs are removed. Will becomes very upset, not only because he believes it's a mistake to take away the arts from the kids, but because his livelihood is at stake... conveniently forgetting that coaching the glee club is something he volunteered to do, and that he is first and foremost a Spanish teacher. Thhis is finally addressed in the "duende" episode, where Will admits that he took the Spanish job because it was the only one available. At the end of the episode he takes a different job in the history department (another field he knows nothing about) and gives his old job to [[Ricky Martin]]. In real life this would prove a disastrous move because few schools would certify an instructor to teach Puerto Rican Spanish, a dialect even native speakers have difficulty following.

 

 

** In a few issues of ''Nintendo Power'' there was a tie-in comic series to ''Super Metroid''. A new character - a male bounty hunter - was added in as a sort of rival and irritant to Samus. While she continued blasting her way through the underground tunnels, he would stop to pick up the space pirates' "ears" or claws or whatever alien body part they were. After he started going on about how rich he was going to be after turning these body parts in for the bounties, Samus actually expressed disgust at his mercenary ways.

* Captain Falcon from ''[[F-Zero]]'' falls into a similar rut, although the focus of his series is mainly on his side-business, racing. All of his Bounty Hunting is literally [[All There in the Manual]].

** In the [[Super Mario Bros. (film)|live-action movie]] and ''[[Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga]]'', they ''do'' use their plumbing skills to stop an attempted sabotage/flooding at a dig site and then in a castle basement. Likewise, the animated series would occasionally show them using their plumbing skills and equipment, either for actual plumbing or for dire situations.

** Referenced in ''[[Banjo-Kazooie|Banjo-Tooie]]'', when Loggo the toilet complains of being clogged:

** Even lowly [[NPC]]s will order you around while doing nothing. They typically won't even do anything with the quest items you bring them (blacksmiths don't make weapons to defend the settlement, etc). ''Wrath of the Lich King'' has taken steps to advert this. For instance one quest requires you to retrieve some weapons for peasants who are being attacked by the Undead. Turning in the quest causes them to run and use the weapons for a short time.

*** Other [[NPC]]s require you to do things like gather Berries before they'll open their shop for your use, where they sell items related to what you got for them. Others will sometimes have tasks you have to do to access the flight path and the Phasing system sometimes requires a chain of quests to be done before an area is filled with friendly NPCs (or have them leave instead).

** This is sometimes averted, as your NPC quest givers may fight alongside you in a quest, or justified in that the NPCs' hands are tied (Drakuru is stuck in a cage after the player captures him, so while he knows what to do, he needs the player to do the legwork). Or even more if they maintain the base camp or ask you as a recon/private assassination team as they hold the fort outside.

** Largely changed in the Cataclysm patch, now each zone has a story and goal you're working towards (and generally a theme, like a murder mystery or an extended Rambo parody).

== Webcomics ==

* ''[[Terror Island]]'' has Ned Q. Sorcerer, DDS, who was bathed with "rays of pure dentistry" in his [[Backstory]], but has never been seen to perform the functions of a dentist, preferring instead to give long tedious speeches about "moonitaurs." However, his superpower is that everyone knows he's a dentist. He isn't actually a dentist.

* Vincent from ''[[Spiky Haired Dragon Worthless Knight]]'' don't take arms and fight, even though he's a knight. Justified by that he has a curse that rendered him unable to take up weapons.

* ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]:'' Sir James Eglamore is a Dragon Slayer. The closest he's come to slaying a dragon is when he beats a [[Our Dragons Are Different|dragon-ish]] Rogat Orjak into submission in chapter 3. The discrepancy is [http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=481 eventually explained]:

** A few other episodes hint it---in the one with Chuckie's imaginary friend I seem to remember her grading papers, and in another Stu asks why she's home and she reminds him it's summer.

** Drew lists his occupation as investment banker, but this comes up even less. Likewise Chaz is a beaurecrat, but this is never shown and seldom referred to.

{{quote|'''Bart:''' Do you even ''have'' a job any more?

'''Homer:''' I think it's pretty obvious that I don't. }}

{{quote|'''Leela:''' That was terrible! People won't even know what we do.

'''Bender:''' I don't even know what we do. Nah, just kidding! What are we, like, a bus or something? }}

* In ''[[wikipedia:Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea|Spartakus And The Sun Beneath The Sea]]'', pirates are the primary villains of the series and do indeed rob and plunder, but are more interested in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ublsCsq_Wzc performing snappy song and dance numbers about themselves].

* The title characters of the short-lived ''[[Undergrads]]'' are not once seen attending class, talking to instructors or even studying. Every university student on the planet ''wishes'' post-secondary school offered that much free time.

== Other ==

* Many Renaissance Festival village ensemble stock characters are like this. There's a ratcatcher who's almost never seen actually catching any rats, the highwayman who almost never robs anybody, and of course pirates and privateers who are there on shore leave and don't actually loot or plunder (though of course they may sing about such things).

* [[Larry the Cable Guy|Larry the so-called Cable Guy]].

* According to ''Sax and Violins'', the band Talking Heads are "criminals that never broke no laws".

* In older fiction involving air travel, airline stewardesses are often shown panicking and/or fulfilling a [[Damsel in Distress]] role in a crisis, presumably because the writers had taken their "beaming glorified cocktail waitress" get-ups at face value. In fact, flight attendants were always trained, clear-headed professionals, who would immediately take action to maximize air passengers' safety during an emergency. Hiring pretty young ladies and having them serve coffee and flirt with businessmen was just the early airlines' way of making their presence less alarming to travelers, who might otherwise be scared off by speeches about what to do in the event of a crash.

* Sadly, the [[MythBusters]] have drifted into being Pirates Who Don't Do Anything in real life. Jamie Hyneman's actual business is ''M5 Studios'', and he and his crew worked for years as very successful special-effects artists and product modelers. Jamie has since admitted in interviews that M5's activity has been declining since [[MythBusters]] hit it big, because companies that would have hired them don't want their products taking a backseat to the show's schedule, which as the show chugs on through ever larger projects is exactly what has happened.

* On several video game sites, it's often joked that so many so-called "gamers" spend more time discussing and arguing about games online than actually playing them.

* The popular stereotype of the "artist" who just sits in the coffee shop "waiting for inspiration" and complains about how hard it is to be an artist. It happens sometimes, but bonus points go for wearing turtlenecks and/or berets.

 

== Real Life ==

** This might not technically count, since it's actually a ''design feature'' of the U.S. system.

* Presidents often receive a similar rap, as in Michael Moore's allegation that George W. Bush spent most of his first term on vacation or Republicans' criticism of Barack Obama's golfing, vacations and parties during the Deep Horizon oil spill crisis. Dwight Eisenhower was similarly portrayed as a golfer-in-chief.

* According to [[Stephen Fry]], rules at Oxford and Cambridge were so lax thirty years ago that students could (and many did) get away with going to almost no lectures or tutorials their entire four years there.

** Not just the students, either: ''professors'' were at least rumored to get away with this.

* [[Truth in Television]]: radio presenters do this frequently. [[Justified Trope|But this is because many of them are]] [[Insistent Terminology|"swing" jocks]] (cover presenters) or have other jobs ([[Trope Codifier]]: Sharon Komrska at Rutland Radio in Stamford, England).

* Certain artists who seem to take an ''extremely'' long break between albums can be accused of this. With the [[Development Hell]] and the [[Artist Disillusionment]] and all.

 

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