What a Senseless Waste of Human Life: Difference between revisions

← Older edit

What a Senseless Waste of Human Life (view source)

Revision as of 00:21, 10 April 2017

132 bytes removed , 7 years ago

update links

VisualWikitext

Dai-Guard

Autopatrolled users, Bots, Confirmed users, Administrators

39,327

edits

Revision as of 16:01, 9 January 2014 (view source) Dai-Guard (talk \| contribs) m (Mass update links) ← Older edit		Latest revision as of 00:21, 10 April 2017 (view source) Dai-Guard (talk \| contribs) (update links)
(7 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown)
Line 12: == Anime and Manga == * Happens a number of times in ''[[~~Dragon Ball (Manga)\|~~Dragon Ball]] Z'' (sometimes the "innocent" is an entire race or planet). * The ''[[Samurai Champloo]]'' manga has Mugen saying this a few times. * In [[One Piece]], the Marines' Buster Call never fails to bring about these moments. Line 18: Later, the Marines initiate a Buster Call ''on their own judicial island'', and yet ''another'' [[Knight Templar\|Vice Admiral]] sees fit to blow up an allied ship with 1000 marine soldiers - all just to kill Luffy. A version (of the trope, not of the Buster Call) is, surprisingly, pulled off by crybaby Coby at {{spoiler\|Ace's execution after he is killed and the marines and pirates are still fighting.}} * ''[[Full Metal Panic!\|Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid]]''. Gates says this after [[Bad Boss\|murdering one of his own mooks]] for backchatting him. But he's just plain nuts. * {{spoiler\|Iserina}} from the [[Mobile Suit Gundam]] TV series tries to avenge the death of her boyfriend, {{spoiler\|Garma Zabi}} She only ends up dead, and the White Base crew end up reflecting on how useless her [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] was. * This is [[Naruto]]'s reason for wanting to stop the Fourth Shinobi War. {{spoiler\|Apparently, it doesn't matter to him if the opposing army consist of mindless, expendable mooks, zombie ninjas, magical stone giants all which are led by a [[Complete Monster]].}} Line 25: * Commented by the Joker in ''[[Batman\|Arkham Asylum: Serious House on Serious Earth]]'', after pointlessly shooting a security guard. Apparently a direct reference to the Monty Python sketch. * Also said by Captain Boomerang in ''[[Suicide Squad]]'' after letting Mindboggler get gunned down from behind. * Subverted in ''[[Asterix]] and the Actress'', where the civil war between Pompeius and Caesar is shown, and Asterix and Obelix are passing near the site of one ongoing battle. Obelix's reaction is that of "What a waste of life", but in the sense that every dead Roman means one less Roman he can't hit later. == Film == * In ''[[The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ~~(Film)~~\|The Good the Bad And The Ugly]]'', during the extended Civil War battle subplot, the main duo is watching a completely pointless battle and Blondie comments, "I've never seen so many men wasted so badly." * Subverted in ''[[James Bond\|Licence To Kill]]'', where Sharky has the memorable line: "What a terrible waste... of money." * In [[The Movie]] of ''[[The Lord of the Rings (~~Film~~film)\|The Two Towers]]'', Faramir speaks a paraphrased version of the narration quoted above. * A running motif throughout ''[[Captain Clegg]]'' is when naval officer Captain Collier (an [[Inspector Javert]] type character) is unwilling to remove his [[Nice Hat]]. When he's in the service of the king, he won't, but off-duty and in the service of his maker (i.e. in church) he will. So at the end of the movie, when he sees the dead body of his enemy (the titular Clegg), he removes his hat. * ''[[Last Clear Chance]]'', a 1950s driving safety film put out by Union Pacific, ends with the protagonist's brother being killed when he [[Too Dumb to Live\|takes his eyes off the road and gets hit by a train]]. In the aftermath, the train's driver intones heavily "Why don't they look?" When ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' riffed on the film, they had a field day spoofing such films, but with less dangerous items...like uncooked bacon. As Mike, bacon across his eyes, screams in horror in the background, Crow comments "Why don't they look?" * Subverted at the end of ''[[The Rocketeer (~~Film~~film)\|The Rocketeer]]''. When Peevy sarcastically reads a news article claiming [[Big Bad\|Neville Sinclair]] was killed when "[[Blatant Lies\|flaming debris fell on his touring car]]," he concludes, "That's terrible. That was a nice car..." * A couple times in ''[[Zulu]]'', and wrong on both counts. Line 42: * In Eddings' ''[[Belgariad\|Belgarath The Sorcerer]]'', after witnessing a large battle, Poledra reminds you she has [[No Social Skills]] with a simple line: {{quote\| ''"What are they going to do with all this meat?"''}} Interestingly, Belgarath thinks a little about it and ponders that there would probably be less war if the winners were ''forced'' to eat the losers. And to be fair, this took place centuries before Poledra first took human form. A wolf asking about meat disposal isn't really a big deal. * In some novels of [[Warhammer ~~40000~~40,000]] you find that not all the imperial commanders think about their troops as expendable cannon fodder and they will condemn their [[General Failure\|collegues]] who seem to keep using [[Hollywood Tactics]] to achieve their military objectives, or just let people (including civilians) get massacred due their incompetence. * In the [[Dale Brown]] novel ''Edge of Battle'', {{spoiler\|Zakharov}} makes such a comment when he sees that {{spoiler\|Frank Falcone}}, who he believed was committed enough to do what had to be done, has a [[My God, What Have I Done?]] moment and is [[Driven to Suicide]]. * In [[The Bible]], David makes this speech at least twice, once over Saul and Jonathan, once over Abner. * In ''[[Harry Potter (~~Literature~~novel)\|Harry Potter]] and the Deathly Hallows'', Voldemort says at the battle of Hogwarts that he hates to see magical blood spilled because it is such a waste. He is, of course, lying through his teeth. == Live Action TV == Line 55: * Parodied in the ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' "Cheese Shop" sketch where John Cleese's character shoots the shop proprietor (Michael Palin) after learning the place is completely devoid of cheese, then comments, "[[Trope Namers\|What a senseless waste of human life.]]" ** And leaves after [[The Drifter\|putting on a cowboy hat]] he pulled out of nowhere. * ''[[~~Doctor Who (TV)\|~~Doctor Who]]'' used variants; often the life he was regretting the loss of ''wasn't'' human. One notable case is in the episodes ''[[Doctor Who ~~(TV)~~/NSRecap/~~Recap~~S29/~~S3 E8~~E08 Human Nature\|Human Nature]]'' and ''[[Doctor Who ~~(TV)/NS~~/Recap/~~S3 E9~~S29/E09 The ~~Familyof~~Family of Blood\|The Family Of Blood]]'', where ''the Doctor'' is the cause of the senseless loss of human life. As {{spoiler\|Joan Redford}} points out: {{quote\| If the Doctor hadn't chosen this place to hide, on a whim, would anyone have died?}} Heck, even the [[The Nth Doctor\|First Doctor]] had such a moment - the Daleks have just activated their superweapon, but instead of doing what they thought it would do, it ended up aging everything in the planet they were into dust. ''Everything''. ** Probably the iconic one is ''[[Doctor Who ~~(TV)~~/Recap/S21 E1/E01 Warriors of the Deep\|Warriors of the Deep]]'': "There should have been another way." * Speaking of ''[[~~Doctor Who (TV)\|~~Doctor Who]]'': rather chillingly referenced in this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsFE-TONe2w public information film] starring C. Eccleston. * In the ''[[~~Red Dwarf (TV)\|~~Red Dwarf]]'' episode "Out Of Time", Kryten deploys the term in advance when, thanks to visiting time-travelers, he learns that Lister is going to {{spoiler\|end up as a disembodied brain in a jar.}} * [[Ant and Dec\|Dec]] wails [[Troperiffic\|exactly the trope name]] over Ant's body in an episode of ''[[SMTV Live\|Chums]]'', after accidentally shooting him. [[Freudian Slip\|Three times]]. (He got better.) Line 67: * Pagan Altar's "Sentinels of Hate". It's essentially about all the common people who have died throughout history because some nobleman wanted more land, or wanted some group destroyed because they didn't worship the right god. * [[The Beatles (~~Music~~band)\|The Beatles]]' "Maxwell's Silver Hammer." Maxwell takes out his date, his teacher and the judge hearing his trial with said object. == Video Games == * In ''[[Fire Emblem]]: Dark Dragon and Sword of Light'' (and it's remake, the 11th game) [[Worthy Opponent\|Camus's]] death by [[My Country, Right or Wrong]] and [[Honor Before Reason]] is treated as such. {{spoiler\|Subverted:In book 2 of the 3rd game he is [[Back ~~From~~from the Dead]], and not only that, he actually joins you}}. * Almost identical words ("''What a pitiful waste of human life''") are actually part of the lyrics of [[Total Distortion]]'s Game Over song. Quite fitting since the protagonist is basically an entrepreneur who wanders an alternate dimension chock-full of hostilities merely for profit... * Mister Burke from ''[[Fallout]] 3'' will sometimes utter the phrase "Some people have no respect for the sanctity of life" when seeing somebody getting killed. Burke is, however, [[The Dragon]] to the evil Mr. Tenpenny and a bit of a [[Smug Snake]] who also plans to blow up a whole town, so he is just as prone to utter: "Natural selection... at its finest." * Lino En Kuldes says this during the climax of ''[[Suikoden IV]]'', after watching {{spoiler\|Troy choose to go down with his ship after losing a showdown with the hero}}. * In [[Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas]], CJ says a variation of this after {{spoiler\|killing friend-turned-crack-pusher Smoke}}. * Inverted by ''[[World of Warcraft]]''. When [[Late Arrival Spoiler\|Illidan is killed]], he uses his dying words to mock Maiev, who has wasted her entire being on hunting him, and now has nothing left to live for. * Inverted/parodied in [[Diablo]] II, when the Necromancer defeats Radamant and his undead forces: "What a waste of undead flesh..." Line 81: * After killing [[The Dragon\|The Sympathetic Dragon]] in [[Target Earth]], the protagonist mutters "Another good man dead." * While he never says it straight, [[No More Heroes\|Travis Touchdown]] eventually views all of his victories against later assassins as this, particularly the ones who weren't psychotic killing machines such as Alice Twilight and Margaret Moonlight. {{quote\| Travis: Fuck that. I wanna be hero. By my own standards. ~~<br />~~ Sylvia: You need to wake up, Travis.~~<br />~~ Travis: Take your own goddamn advice. }} * Pops up in ''[[Star Wars Battlefront]] II'', in the Imperial era of the campaign. The Death Star casualties, particularly the pilots who were rotated in in place of the 501st, are referred to by the narrator as "poor souls." Line 88: * One of [[The Conscience\|Aveline's]] bits of combat chatter in ''[[Dragon Age II]]'' is a sad "A waste of life, but not my choice." * [[Dawn of War]] II Lord General Castor treads this. {{quote\| Castor: I am not afraid to spend them, but I never waste men.}} * ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' has Mordin's loyalty mission. {{spoiler\|Years before the start of the game, Mordin worked on updating the [[Depopulation Bomb\|genophage]] affecting krogan birth rates.}} During the mission, you'll find the corpse of a krogan on what looks like a surgical table. Up until that point, [[Motor Mouth\|Mordin]] insisted that his work was the correct thing to do for every party involved; at that moment, however... {{quote\| Dead krogan. Female. Tumours indicate [[Playing ~~With~~with Syringes\|experimentation.]] [[Tear Jerker\|No restraint marks. Volunteer. Sterile Weyrloc female willing to risk procedures. Hoped for cure.]] Pointless. Pointless waste of life. [...] Never experimented on live krogan! Never killed with medicine! Her death not my work, only reaction to it. [[My God, What Have I Done?\|Goal was to stabilize population. Never wanted this. Can see it logically... but still unnecessary.]] ''Foolish'' waste of life...! [...] Krogan researchers ruthless. Risking own clan's women for more data. ''Disgusting.'' Shortsighted. Wrong.}} Line 99: == Real Life == * The [[Iran -Iraq War]]. * The Killing Fields in Cambodia. * The Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. Line 108: {{reflist}} [[Category:Stock Phrases]] [[Category:What Aa Senseless Waste Ofof Human Life]] ~~[[Category:Trope]]~~